Experts Trying to Hide Deficiencies

     Health-care professionals strive mightily to become competent, then proudly display their competence - hence the popularity of specialization & sub-specialization. The more minutely specialized one's area of training, the more sought-after are one's services, and the less one is subject to criticism from patients & colleagues.
     Of course the more time & effort expended in gaining specialized competence, the less time & effort remains to acquire general life skills. As a result, most of us haven't lead a balanced life since we were kids. Physical exercise, sleep & nutrition are not the only areas in which we're deficient. See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/search?q=maturation
     Because we become so tightly identified with the persona of "the one who knows", we become increasingly sensitive about our ignorance of the many life-skills we've ignored. This is problematic of course, not only in our family & social life, but also professionally.
     Defensiveness of our ignorance about subjects outside of our specialized area is often manifested as swaggering condemnation of basically anything outside of our own sub-specialty - the humanities, mental-health, social work, nursing, physiotherapy, spirituality, etc - are all targets. See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/07/soft-skills-undervalued.html
     Since such attitudes are politically incorrect, the condemnation happens behind closed doors - the "hidden curriculum" - it's toxic effects are part of professional socialization. See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/search?q=hidden+curriculum

     Fear of our own ignorance, hubris, and our unwillingness to step-up to acquire competence in practical wisdom, condemns too many of us to become grumbling backroom cynics - "nattering nabobs of negativity." Surely health-care professionals can rise above that!

"Not Good Enough" Runs our Lives

     I'll never forget an instructor in first year dentistry - Dr. S. Each time I'd show him something I had just finished working on, he'd look at it for 30 seconds or so with a disgusted look on his face, then inevitably say "Ehhhh, do it over again." What he meant of course was "not good enough!"
     Like Dr. S, our parents likely meant well by repeatedly urging us to improve on various activities - HOWEVER - after a steady diet of this, doesn't a distinct impression form that WE are not good enough? And what do we do about this deep sense of insufficiency? WE STRIVE for ACCEPTANCE, which deep down we know we can't ever achieve, because ... we're simply "not good enough." 
     So we sense that we're perpetually running after (praise, acceptance) some elusive "must have" thing - like the fake rabbit that's always just out of the reach of the hounds on race tracks. Is this at least partly why some of us will "never retire"? At the same time, we're running from criticism, rejection.
     Maybe "not good enough" not just runs, but ruins lives. Is there any wonder why self-acceptance is a critical part of various psychotherapies?

Simulated Town, Palestine - Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin

Encouragement Nourishes, Criticism Annihilates

     "I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism."                Charles M. Schwab

     See also: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/06/attention-educators-threatened-self.html
 

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