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Jan, what a pleasure to be here with you in
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Vancouver today. I'm so looking forward to our
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conversation.
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Thank you very much, Jillian, and welcome to
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Vancouver. You've chosen a lovely
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but rather warm day to be doing this work
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here in Vancouver.
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We're going to try not to melt in the next 30
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minutes as we find out a little bit about you.
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So we're going to start in kind of a different
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way than we often do with these conversations.
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Often, we go linear and we talk about the
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trajectory of your career.
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But today, I want to start with a particular
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moment that you shared with me a little while
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ago. I want to start with you as
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a sister in a hospital room with
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your beloved sibling, taking
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us back to that moment in your life.
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My sister, who was four years older than me,
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was struck with almost a complete
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kidney failure, and it had to do with a
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post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis.
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She was on dialysis at what was Wellesley
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Hospital in Toronto for
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a number of years.
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Often in the summers, we'd go down from our
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house in northern Ontario and spend the
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summers with her, and I was often at the
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hospital with her.
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There was one day when we were in the hospital
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room together, she and I.
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And the doctors came around to do rounds.
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It was her, her nephrologist
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with a gaggle of students.
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I imagine now, in retrospect, I
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imagine there were some medical students and
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some residents in the gaggle, but there were 7
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or 8 of those people.
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So they came into the room and they didn't
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address us. They stood there, and he
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said, "What do you think her diagnosis
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is?" Didn't say hi to either
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her or I.
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And then the students sort of barked out their
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answers and then they,
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in front of us, discussed the prognosis for
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her as well, which was quite dismal.
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Then they left.
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I was
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shocked and saddened by the whole encounter.
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My sister, Heather, said to
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me, "You would be a better doctor than any
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of those people." I thought
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about it, and I thought what we need
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in medicine is not brilliant people, what we
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need in medicine is human people.
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Medicine has to take
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a whole different turn if we're going to
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really make it therapeutic for people.
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We need to be as human as we can possibly
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be if we're going to be healers.
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And that healing is so much more than just
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addressing the symptoms of an illness.
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It really has to do with looking at the whole
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person, appreciating who they are, hearing
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their stories, and learning what's in their
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hearts.
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That's the only way that we'll ever be
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strictly therapeutic healers.
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We're going to come back to what you just said
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about stories and the importance of
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integrating those personal stories into our
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lives and our clinical identities.
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But remember, I said we weren't going to go
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linear, so now we're going to shift
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talking about the arc of your career and your
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personal life to the present day.
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I want to talk, in particular, about
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your life as a caregiver.
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Well you know it's interesting when I think about that, when
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I think about my whole career, going to
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medical school and being so keen to be a
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consultant. I'm a consultant obstetrician/
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gynecologist, as you know, living that whole
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career, delivering thousands of babies, then
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going through a number of different career
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steps and having administrative and
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leadership positions, then getting to the
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point where I'm sort of trying to retire,
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and now making the transition again
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to being a full-time caregiver for
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my husband who has advanced Parkinson's.
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It's been really interesting to
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think about it, in terms of how
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we identify as physicians and what
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it means to let go
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of some of that identity in favour of
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whatever's happening in our human lives.
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Can you talk a little bit more about that,
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what that experience
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has been like for you, or what your
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observations have been about what's
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most difficult about making that shift?
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Until 2017, I was actually president
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of B.C. Women's Hospital here in Vancouver,
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a large hospital really responsible
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for much of the maternity care in the
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province.
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When I said something, people listened.
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When I had an idea
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that I wanted to get done.
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I mean, it didn't always happen, but at least,
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there was a sense that people wanted
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to hear what I had to say and that I
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had a public presence, and
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that I was very much part of the conversation.
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So over the course of my career, if there's
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anything that's really motivated me, it's
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been wanting to be part of the conversation
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about how to make things better, how to
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make things better for patients and for
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physicians and for the world.
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And I felt, in my role as president
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of B.C. Women's, that I was always part
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of the conversation. I was always at the
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table. That I had an opinion that people
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wanted to hear.
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It's funny, when you walk away from your
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public persona, that, I
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would say, is one of the things that I missed
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the most.
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And in many ways, I actually
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felt really quite saddened
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by it at first. I've come to terms with it
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now, and I realize that what I'm doing is
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actually probably more important than what I
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was doing there in some ways.
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One of the things that was really helpful was
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a conversation with my sister, who's a
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business leader in Ontario, and
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she said to me, "You're suffering from PIP
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syndrome, 'previously important
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person syndrome'." And we
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both had a good laugh about it.
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But it is true that, as
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we leave our roles, whether it's as a
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physician in active practice, whether it's
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a leadership role, whatever it is,
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we are so attached to the roles we hold,
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especially as physicians and especially
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as physician leaders, that it can be
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difficult to walk away from that
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and become a general member
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of the public.
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Where you can walk down the street and people don't
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stop to talk to you all the time.
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We talked about that transition
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for you, some of the emotional layers
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of the experience, and you've touched on some
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of them just now as well.
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I know one of the things you shared with me is that
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you are a professional
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walker.
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Maybe "professional" is not the term that you
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would use, but you took a trip recently
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that had a huge impact on you and allowed
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you to sit differently with some
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of the reflections that you just shared.
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Tell me a bit about that.
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Thank you. So I just had an absolutely
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fantastic experience this year.
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I walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela
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and I finished an 800-kilometre
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hike. I did 500 this year, 300 last
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year. It
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was life changing
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in terms of dealing with exactly what we've
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just been talking about, dealing with
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transitions.
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I guess, if I was going to try to summarize
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the lessons, I'd put it like this.
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We need time to think, and
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we need time to walk and be physical in
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our bodies. And when we are physical in
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our bodies, that's something we can do, like
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walking or whatever you love to
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do, biking or whatever it is, we
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live in our bodies differently.
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The other thing that I found so precious about
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it was, I don't remember a time where I
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had six hours in a day
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to do something that I really wanted to do.
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So it was a day to just think, and
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that was just magical.
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One of the other things that happened was that
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you're always meeting strangers,
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but you're meeting these strangers that are
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doing exactly the same thing that you are,
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they're on exactly the same tangent,
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and they're experiencing the same thing.
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They're experiencing the tough uphills, the
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tough downhills, the slogging through the
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30 km days.
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And you start off having a conversation with
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somebody who may be a complete stranger,
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but you feel this bond to them because
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they've made the same decision.
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They've made the same commitment.
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So often I found myself having conversations
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with people that were deeply, deeply
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personal or spiritual, that
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I wouldn't have at home.
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And when I really thought about why
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that was different and why I thought it was
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more meaningful than a conversation I'd
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have in the hallway of the hospital.
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Part of it was this:
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when you talk to a stranger, you
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have to coalesce your story
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in a way that you can tell it in a few minutes
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that makes sense.
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So, in other words, you sort of have to become
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a third person to your own story.
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And how you tell that narrative is
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really critical to developing that rapport.
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It's finding the language around some
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of the stuff that I'd been going through,
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especially with these transitions,
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and then delivering it in
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a short conversation.
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I found that I
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learned so much more about
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how to really put that language together.
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It also made me think about how important
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narrative is to us. I mean
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everybody's story is so interesting.
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There is no such thing as a person with a
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boring story.
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Seriously.
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You just have to find what's so interesting
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about the stories.
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And I found myself able to do that and having
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a fantastic time doing that on the Camino.
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Jan, there are so many things that you just
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said that I love. And one thing I find myself
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thinking about is something that a friend
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and colleague of mine, Ron Epstein, likes to
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say. His framing is that
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there are two stories that we can tell
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about any life, including our own, and
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we can tell the version of our lives
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as a series of stories about
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things we fail to act, or we can tell it
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as a series of things that we overcame.
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And you make me think about the fact that, in
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medicine, so often, because
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of our personality characteristics
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and the things that draw us to
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medicine, that can easily become maladaptive
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over time.
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We are very comfortable with stories
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about failures and why we're not good enough
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and how we need to flagellate ourselves to be
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better. So that positioning,
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how we tell the story when lifted out
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of the context of medicine and medical
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practice, is something
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that I think I hear you articulating in
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terms of that experience on the
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Camino.
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I think you're absolutely right about that.
273
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I think, really, it
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is so important that we, as physicians, lift
275
00:11:02,228 --> 00:11:04,764
ourselves out of our physician roles
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in many different ways, whether it's
277
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exercise, whether it's art, whether it's
278
00:11:09,535 --> 00:11:11,837
music, whatever it is, that we
279
00:11:11,837 --> 00:11:15,041
have interests outside so that we can actually
280
00:11:15,074 --> 00:11:17,910
take that step back and look at who we are
281
00:11:17,910 --> 00:11:19,712
in the context of our lives, not just in the
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context of our practice.
283
00:11:21,147 --> 00:11:23,816
I think it makes us better physicians
284
00:11:23,816 --> 00:11:26,285
and, in many ways, it enriches
285
00:11:26,285 --> 00:11:27,687
our lives as well.
286
00:11:27,687 --> 00:11:30,423
But the question about the failures
287
00:11:30,423 --> 00:11:32,858
versus challenges is a very, very
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00:11:32,858 --> 00:11:35,695
good one. And I have been so guilty,
289
00:11:35,695 --> 00:11:38,064
as so many people in medicine,
290
00:11:38,064 --> 00:11:40,866
especially women, despite
291
00:11:40,866 --> 00:11:42,601
how I'd say I have
292
00:11:43,669 --> 00:11:45,971
had a fairly successful career, but I still
293
00:11:45,971 --> 00:11:48,941
find myself doing the imposter syndrome thing.
294
00:11:48,941 --> 00:11:51,077
I still feel myself saying,
295
00:11:52,344 --> 00:11:54,380
"Why would they want me to do that?
296
00:11:54,380 --> 00:11:55,981
I'm not that interesting.
297
00:11:55,981 --> 00:11:58,350
Why would I? I'm not that smart," or whatever.
298
00:11:58,350 --> 00:12:01,320
I find myself still doing that,
299
00:12:01,320 --> 00:12:03,689
where I take myself out of it
300
00:12:03,689 --> 00:12:06,025
or flagellate myself from not being a little
301
00:12:06,025 --> 00:12:08,360
bit better than I was, or I only got
302
00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:10,329
99% on my exam,
303
00:12:10,329 --> 00:12:12,031
why didn't I get 100?
304
00:12:12,031 --> 00:12:14,567
And that's the kind of thing I think we do.
305
00:12:14,567 --> 00:12:17,269
I think there's reasons that we grew up looking
306
00:12:17,269 --> 00:12:19,672
at that. We wanted to be perfect, we
307
00:12:19,672 --> 00:12:21,474
certainly didn't want to make mistakes.
308
00:12:21,474 --> 00:12:23,976
I mean, as an obstetrician/gynecologist, we've
309
00:12:23,976 --> 00:12:27,012
worked so hard within our profession
310
00:12:27,012 --> 00:12:29,315
to make sure that we safety proof everything
311
00:12:29,315 --> 00:12:31,150
we do. And the idea that
312
00:12:32,451 --> 00:12:35,054
a negative outcome is going to arise is
313
00:12:35,054 --> 00:12:37,990
something that we really want to avoid.
314
00:12:38,023 --> 00:12:39,024
So, yes, we do,
315
00:12:39,024 --> 00:12:41,260
we want to be perfect.
316
00:12:41,293 --> 00:12:42,962
We don't want to see our cracks.
317
00:12:42,962 --> 00:12:45,631
We want to inspire confidence.
318
00:12:45,631 --> 00:12:48,400
And that's always the dichotomy
319
00:12:48,434 --> 00:12:49,435
that we hold in our mind.
320
00:12:49,435 --> 00:12:50,803
We want to be human.
321
00:12:50,803 --> 00:12:53,172
We want to learn from our mistakes, but we
322
00:12:53,172 --> 00:12:55,541
want to appear to be
323
00:12:55,541 --> 00:12:58,477
confident and competent
324
00:12:58,477 --> 00:13:00,446
in everything we do.
325
00:13:00,446 --> 00:13:01,514
So it's interesting.
326
00:13:01,514 --> 00:13:04,483
I mean, it's hard to hold in your heart
327
00:13:04,483 --> 00:13:07,153
the idea of vulnerability and
328
00:13:07,153 --> 00:13:10,022
complete confidence at the same time.
329
00:13:10,022 --> 00:13:12,258
And it's something that I think we struggle
330
00:13:12,258 --> 00:13:14,960
with as people and as
331
00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:15,928
physicians as well.
332
00:13:15,928 --> 00:13:18,430
Absolutely. I think it's also this idea
333
00:13:18,430 --> 00:13:20,432
that often we talk about in the context of
334
00:13:20,432 --> 00:13:22,701
mindfulness or other sort of
335
00:13:23,803 --> 00:13:26,172
self-regulation practices, that two things can
336
00:13:26,172 --> 00:13:28,541
be true at once. We can be powerful and we can
337
00:13:28,541 --> 00:13:30,476
be vulnerable. And those things are not
338
00:13:30,476 --> 00:13:32,411
mutually exclusive, as you say.
339
00:13:33,979 --> 00:13:35,181
There's another thing you said that really
340
00:13:35,181 --> 00:13:37,750
struck me, and it's about physicality
341
00:13:37,750 --> 00:13:39,652
and inhabiting our bodies because
342
00:13:41,754 --> 00:13:42,955
I think we have to push through so much
343
00:13:42,955 --> 00:13:45,191
physical discomfort during the course of our
344
00:13:45,191 --> 00:13:47,560
training and later on in our careers in
345
00:13:47,560 --> 00:13:49,929
order to be successful and also
346
00:13:49,929 --> 00:13:52,531
just do the things that we're expected to do.
347
00:13:52,531 --> 00:13:53,866
And one of the things you talk about,
348
00:13:55,100 --> 00:13:57,403
inhabiting the body to walk or
349
00:13:57,403 --> 00:13:59,104
just be present with the body.
350
00:13:59,104 --> 00:14:00,906
I always find it so curious how so many
351
00:14:00,906 --> 00:14:03,309
physicians that I know, who are very
352
00:14:03,309 --> 00:14:05,911
physically active, they're
353
00:14:05,911 --> 00:14:07,746
not just physically active.
354
00:14:07,746 --> 00:14:09,315
It's again,
355
00:14:09,315 --> 00:14:11,483
sort of highly competitive.
356
00:14:11,483 --> 00:14:12,618
You can't just run,
357
00:14:12,618 --> 00:14:13,819
you've got to do the Ironman.
358
00:14:13,819 --> 00:14:15,354
You've got to do 30k,
359
00:14:15,354 --> 00:14:16,922
it can't be 10k.
360
00:14:16,922 --> 00:14:19,592
And I wonder if you could talk about your
361
00:14:19,592 --> 00:14:21,961
thoughts in terms of the relationship
362
00:14:21,994 --> 00:14:24,630
to just being and inhabiting, as opposed
363
00:14:24,663 --> 00:14:27,032
to physical exercise or
364
00:14:29,168 --> 00:14:31,637
any kind of activity that we do with the body,
365
00:14:31,637 --> 00:14:33,973
falling again into some of those maladaptive
366
00:14:33,973 --> 00:14:35,374
patterns.
367
00:14:35,374 --> 00:14:36,609
To get digressing just for a second.
368
00:14:36,609 --> 00:14:38,544
One of the things I did during the pandemic
369
00:14:38,544 --> 00:14:41,146
was I joined a meditation group.
370
00:14:41,146 --> 00:14:42,381
And from 6:30 to 7:00
371
00:14:43,515 --> 00:14:46,051
every morning, we met on Zoom.
372
00:14:46,051 --> 00:14:48,520
A number of us had worked together previously
373
00:14:48,520 --> 00:14:50,389
as colleagues, and it was run by one of the
374
00:14:50,389 --> 00:14:53,792
nurses that I used to work at the hospital.
375
00:14:53,792 --> 00:14:56,228
Every morning we had this
376
00:14:56,228 --> 00:14:58,731
fantastic group meditation.
377
00:14:58,731 --> 00:15:01,033
One of the things I found myself struggling
378
00:15:01,033 --> 00:15:03,769
with the most was the dichotomy
379
00:15:03,769 --> 00:15:06,272
between being and doing, which
380
00:15:06,272 --> 00:15:08,540
is exactly what you're talking about.
381
00:15:08,540 --> 00:15:11,377
We are taught that we have to fill our days.
382
00:15:11,377 --> 00:15:13,545
We are taught that our days are wasted if we
383
00:15:13,545 --> 00:15:16,115
sit around doing sudokus
384
00:15:16,115 --> 00:15:18,083
or even sit around meditating. We have this
385
00:15:18,083 --> 00:15:20,085
sense that we're wasting time and time is
386
00:15:20,085 --> 00:15:21,720
valuable, and
387
00:15:23,222 --> 00:15:25,858
therefore we're bad people if we waste time
388
00:15:25,858 --> 00:15:28,961
because we're wasting this precious resource.
389
00:15:28,961 --> 00:15:31,263
I think that's part of it, that we grow up
390
00:15:31,263 --> 00:15:33,666
or we mature in
391
00:15:33,666 --> 00:15:36,135
this profession where
392
00:15:36,135 --> 00:15:38,003
every second counts.
393
00:15:38,003 --> 00:15:40,339
Certainly true in my position that literally
394
00:15:40,339 --> 00:15:42,207
a second could make the difference between
395
00:15:42,207 --> 00:15:44,910
life and death and that you have
396
00:15:44,944 --> 00:15:47,379
to be always at the top of your game, trying
397
00:15:47,379 --> 00:15:48,881
as hard as you can.
398
00:15:48,881 --> 00:15:50,683
If not, then you've wasted your day.
399
00:15:51,850 --> 00:15:54,420
That really is something that I think
400
00:15:54,420 --> 00:15:56,822
you can't live your whole career in that and not
401
00:15:56,822 --> 00:15:58,691
have it affect your psyche.
402
00:15:58,691 --> 00:16:01,060
So I think, we really should think
403
00:16:01,060 --> 00:16:03,062
about the arc of our careers.
404
00:16:03,062 --> 00:16:05,631
And so often, we're at any point in time
405
00:16:05,631 --> 00:16:07,766
where we're so concentrating on the one little
406
00:16:07,766 --> 00:16:09,969
part of our career that we're on.
407
00:16:09,969 --> 00:16:12,404
But if you think of the whole thing as an arc,
408
00:16:13,806 --> 00:16:16,442
then you get to the point where you really see
409
00:16:16,442 --> 00:16:18,811
how the whole thing fits into the totality
410
00:16:18,811 --> 00:16:21,280
of your life, if you want the sort
411
00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:23,582
of the angst of your life
412
00:16:23,582 --> 00:16:24,583
and everything else. So,
413
00:16:26,085 --> 00:16:27,653
in the beginning, you're building up your
414
00:16:27,653 --> 00:16:30,055
career and you're busy
415
00:16:30,055 --> 00:16:31,490
and you're doing everything you want to do,
416
00:16:31,490 --> 00:16:33,792
and you're establishing credibility as a
417
00:16:33,792 --> 00:16:35,194
physician and you're learning how to be a
418
00:16:35,194 --> 00:16:36,195
physician.
419
00:16:37,229 --> 00:16:39,765
But during that time, you can't stop knowing
420
00:16:39,765 --> 00:16:42,301
how to be a human, because underneath
421
00:16:42,301 --> 00:16:44,503
it all, your humanity is first of all going to
422
00:16:44,503 --> 00:16:46,338
feed your medical career.
423
00:16:46,338 --> 00:16:48,841
But secondly, it's going to prepare you
424
00:16:48,841 --> 00:16:51,310
for the rest of your arc and that middle
425
00:16:51,310 --> 00:16:53,612
part where you're practising and
426
00:16:53,612 --> 00:16:55,748
you're learning more and more, not the
427
00:16:55,748 --> 00:16:58,083
technical stuff of medicine, but the
428
00:16:58,083 --> 00:16:59,785
human part of medicine.
429
00:16:59,785 --> 00:17:02,154
And then as you go into retirement and beyond,
430
00:17:03,422 --> 00:17:06,492
we become the mentors, we become the elders,
431
00:17:06,492 --> 00:17:08,994
we become the knowledge keepers in a way that
432
00:17:08,994 --> 00:17:12,197
our society does not really
433
00:17:12,197 --> 00:17:15,801
acknowledge, as well as our First Nations
434
00:17:15,801 --> 00:17:17,970
compatriots and colleagues.
435
00:17:17,970 --> 00:17:20,372
But there is something in that part
436
00:17:20,372 --> 00:17:22,941
of your life that is so precious.
437
00:17:22,941 --> 00:17:25,344
And really what I'm looking for, more than
438
00:17:25,344 --> 00:17:27,946
anything else at this point, is opportunities
439
00:17:27,946 --> 00:17:31,083
to be a mentor, to be a guide,
440
00:17:31,083 --> 00:17:33,452
to pass on what I know, not
441
00:17:33,452 --> 00:17:35,320
about the technical stuff because it changes
442
00:17:35,320 --> 00:17:37,423
every day, but about the human part of
443
00:17:37,423 --> 00:17:38,757
medicine.
444
00:17:38,757 --> 00:17:41,060
And so I'm actually
445
00:17:41,060 --> 00:17:42,761
looking forward to the next few years and
446
00:17:42,761 --> 00:17:45,130
having some time to think and having some
447
00:17:45,130 --> 00:17:48,000
time to really be a human being
448
00:17:48,033 --> 00:17:50,335
apart from my physician identity.
449
00:17:51,603 --> 00:17:54,206
So much of what I hear
450
00:17:54,206 --> 00:17:56,208
in what you're saying, Jan, has to do with
451
00:17:56,208 --> 00:17:59,044
consolidating these sorts of fractured pieces
452
00:17:59,044 --> 00:18:01,780
of ourselves that have been cleaved
453
00:18:01,780 --> 00:18:04,216
from us for so many of the reasons
454
00:18:04,216 --> 00:18:05,551
that we've talked about in terms of our
455
00:18:05,584 --> 00:18:07,920
professional culture and all kinds of
456
00:18:07,953 --> 00:18:10,089
other forces that shape us.
457
00:18:10,089 --> 00:18:12,991
And so I want to end our time together
458
00:18:12,991 --> 00:18:15,294
with the same story that we started with,
459
00:18:15,294 --> 00:18:17,796
but with your sharing of that
460
00:18:17,796 --> 00:18:20,199
story and a moment that you
461
00:18:20,199 --> 00:18:22,434
relayed to me that was incredibly powerful.
462
00:18:22,434 --> 00:18:24,837
Could you tell me about a talk that you
463
00:18:24,837 --> 00:18:26,338
gave where you spoke about your sister
464
00:18:26,338 --> 00:18:27,372
Heather.
465
00:18:27,372 --> 00:18:29,007
Three or four years ago, I was the keynote
466
00:18:29,007 --> 00:18:31,477
speaker for my department at the University
467
00:18:31,477 --> 00:18:32,478
of British Columbia,
468
00:18:34,213 --> 00:18:35,481
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
469
00:18:36,548 --> 00:18:38,250
We have a yearly dinner, and I was the dinner
470
00:18:38,283 --> 00:18:40,786
speaker that year, and
471
00:18:40,786 --> 00:18:43,989
I made it a very personal speech.
472
00:18:43,989 --> 00:18:46,492
And interestingly, I realized that
473
00:18:46,492 --> 00:18:49,161
I had never told the story
474
00:18:49,161 --> 00:18:52,431
to my colleagues about my sister,
475
00:18:52,431 --> 00:18:54,333
that most people didn't even realize that I
476
00:18:54,333 --> 00:18:56,702
had an older sister who had died at the age
477
00:18:56,702 --> 00:18:57,703
of 23.
478
00:19:00,472 --> 00:19:02,307
I hesitated to put that story in.
479
00:19:02,307 --> 00:19:04,376
Because we have to be strong.
480
00:19:04,376 --> 00:19:06,912
We can't be vulnerable.
481
00:19:06,912 --> 00:19:09,448
We have to be seen
482
00:19:09,448 --> 00:19:12,050
as being these bastions of
483
00:19:12,050 --> 00:19:13,051
competency.
484
00:19:13,986 --> 00:19:15,787
And yet it seemed to me it was the right thing
485
00:19:15,787 --> 00:19:18,190
to do. So I told the story and I told it very
486
00:19:18,190 --> 00:19:21,326
much in the way that I told it today.
487
00:19:21,326 --> 00:19:23,495
I talked a little bit more about her and
488
00:19:23,495 --> 00:19:25,664
exactly what she was like.
489
00:19:28,433 --> 00:19:30,936
I ended the
490
00:19:30,936 --> 00:19:34,206
talk to a standing ovation
491
00:19:34,206 --> 00:19:36,141
and the number of people that came up to me,
492
00:19:36,141 --> 00:19:38,310
people who I'd known for 30 years, they had
493
00:19:42,047 --> 00:19:43,448
no idea that this was my history.
494
00:19:43,448 --> 00:19:45,517
The number of people that came up to me and
495
00:19:45,517 --> 00:19:48,287
said thank you, thank you so much
496
00:19:48,287 --> 00:19:49,454
for sharing this.
497
00:19:49,454 --> 00:19:51,089
And some of them said things that I didn't
498
00:19:51,089 --> 00:19:53,192
know, like I had a sister that died when she
499
00:19:53,192 --> 00:19:55,160
was 18, I had a brother that died, I
500
00:19:57,262 --> 00:19:58,397
had a stillbirth.
501
00:19:58,397 --> 00:20:01,133
The number of people who shared their personal
502
00:20:01,133 --> 00:20:03,869
stories with me after I shared that story
503
00:20:03,869 --> 00:20:05,938
was astounding to me.
504
00:20:05,938 --> 00:20:07,673
And I know the literature on that.
505
00:20:07,673 --> 00:20:09,741
If you actually share a personal story, you
506
00:20:09,741 --> 00:20:12,277
enable other people to share their stories.
507
00:20:13,312 --> 00:20:15,714
So I guess what I'd end up by saying is that
508
00:20:15,714 --> 00:20:18,350
we have to share our stories.
509
00:20:18,383 --> 00:20:20,118
We have to listen to other people's stories.
510
00:20:20,118 --> 00:20:22,588
And in that storytelling is
511
00:20:22,588 --> 00:20:24,957
really the depth of our humanity.
512
00:20:26,225 --> 00:20:28,126
Yeah. I think when we share those stories, as you
513
00:20:28,126 --> 00:20:30,629
articulate, often we worry
514
00:20:30,629 --> 00:20:32,965
about reaction and instead we
515
00:20:32,965 --> 00:20:34,533
think of the wrong what if, what if people
516
00:20:34,533 --> 00:20:36,835
react negatively? But what if this is what
517
00:20:36,835 --> 00:20:38,770
we can do that will actually change our
518
00:20:38,770 --> 00:20:39,504
culture?
519
00:20:39,504 --> 00:20:41,607
Exactly. So it goes back almost to what you
520
00:20:41,607 --> 00:20:44,243
were saying. We expect a negative
521
00:20:44,243 --> 00:20:46,612
reaction instead of expecting a positive
522
00:20:46,612 --> 00:20:49,281
reaction. But what if we do expect that
523
00:20:49,281 --> 00:20:50,282
positive reaction?
524
00:20:50,282 --> 00:20:52,618
We get it. And what's the worst
525
00:20:52,618 --> 00:20:54,920
that's going to happen? People won't like my
526
00:20:54,953 --> 00:20:56,922
talk. It's not like it's going to be a
527
00:20:56,922 --> 00:20:58,690
disaster.
528
00:20:58,690 --> 00:21:00,926
No one will be harmed.
529
00:21:00,926 --> 00:21:02,861
– Nobody will be harmed.
But maybe it's a first step to
530
00:21:02,861 --> 00:21:04,463
changing the world that we live in.
531
00:21:04,463 --> 00:21:05,597
Exactly, exactly.
532
00:21:05,597 --> 00:21:07,532
So it's all about really experiencing the
533
00:21:07,532 --> 00:21:10,135
whole depth of our humanity and
534
00:21:10,135 --> 00:21:12,437
using it to nurture those around us and the
535
00:21:12,437 --> 00:21:13,438
world.
536
00:21:14,606 --> 00:21:16,908
Jan, what an absolute delight
537
00:21:16,908 --> 00:21:17,909
to talk to you today.
538
00:21:17,909 --> 00:21:20,045
Thank you for sharing your story and for
539
00:21:20,045 --> 00:21:22,981
sharing your wisdom and for being exactly
540
00:21:22,981 --> 00:21:23,982
who you are.
541
00:21:25,117 --> 00:21:29,121
Thank you.
00:00:13,947 --> 00:00:15,915
Jan, what a pleasure to be here with you in
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Vancouver today. I'm so looking forward to our
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conversation.
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Thank you very much, Jillian, and welcome to
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Vancouver. You've chosen a lovely
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but rather warm day to be doing this work
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here in Vancouver.
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We're going to try not to melt in the next 30
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minutes as we find out a little bit about you.
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So we're going to start in kind of a different
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way than we often do with these conversations.
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Often, we go linear and we talk about the
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trajectory of your career.
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But today, I want to start with a particular
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moment that you shared with me a little while
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ago. I want to start with you as
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a sister in a hospital room with
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your beloved sibling, taking
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us back to that moment in your life.
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My sister, who was four years older than me,
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was struck with almost a complete
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kidney failure, and it had to do with a
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post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis.
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She was on dialysis at what was Wellesley
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Hospital in Toronto for
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a number of years.
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Often in the summers, we'd go down from our
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house in northern Ontario and spend the
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summers with her, and I was often at the
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hospital with her.
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There was one day when we were in the hospital
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room together, she and I.
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And the doctors came around to do rounds.
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It was her, her nephrologist
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with a gaggle of students.
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I imagine now, in retrospect, I
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imagine there were some medical students and
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some residents in the gaggle, but there were 7
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or 8 of those people.
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So they came into the room and they didn't
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address us. They stood there, and he
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said, "What do you think her diagnosis
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is?" Didn't say hi to either
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her or I.
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And then the students sort of barked out their
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answers and then they,
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in front of us, discussed the prognosis for
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her as well, which was quite dismal.
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Then they left.
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I was
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shocked and saddened by the whole encounter.
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My sister, Heather, said to
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me, "You would be a better doctor than any
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of those people." I thought
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about it, and I thought what we need
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in medicine is not brilliant people, what we
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need in medicine is human people.
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Medicine has to take
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a whole different turn if we're going to
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really make it therapeutic for people.
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We need to be as human as we can possibly
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be if we're going to be healers.
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And that healing is so much more than just
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addressing the symptoms of an illness.
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It really has to do with looking at the whole
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person, appreciating who they are, hearing
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their stories, and learning what's in their
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hearts.
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That's the only way that we'll ever be
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strictly therapeutic healers.
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We're going to come back to what you just said
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about stories and the importance of
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integrating those personal stories into our
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lives and our clinical identities.
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But remember, I said we weren't going to go
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linear, so now we're going to shift
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talking about the arc of your career and your
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personal life to the present day.
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I want to talk, in particular, about
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your life as a caregiver.
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Well you know it's interesting when I think about that, when
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I think about my whole career, going to
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medical school and being so keen to be a
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consultant. I'm a consultant obstetrician/
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gynecologist, as you know, living that whole
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career, delivering thousands of babies, then
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going through a number of different career
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steps and having administrative and
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leadership positions, then getting to the
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point where I'm sort of trying to retire,
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and now making the transition again
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to being a full-time caregiver for
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my husband who has advanced Parkinson's.
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It's been really interesting to
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think about it, in terms of how
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we identify as physicians and what
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it means to let go
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of some of that identity in favour of
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whatever's happening in our human lives.
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Can you talk a little bit more about that,
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what that experience
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has been like for you, or what your
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observations have been about what's
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most difficult about making that shift?
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Until 2017, I was actually president
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of B.C. Women's Hospital here in Vancouver,
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a large hospital really responsible
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for much of the maternity care in the
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province.
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When I said something, people listened.
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When I had an idea
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that I wanted to get done.
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I mean, it didn't always happen, but at least,
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there was a sense that people wanted
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to hear what I had to say and that I
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had a public presence, and
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that I was very much part of the conversation.
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So over the course of my career, if there's
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anything that's really motivated me, it's
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been wanting to be part of the conversation
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about how to make things better, how to
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make things better for patients and for
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physicians and for the world.
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And I felt, in my role as president
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of B.C. Women's, that I was always part
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of the conversation. I was always at the
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table. That I had an opinion that people
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wanted to hear.
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It's funny, when you walk away from your
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public persona, that, I
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would say, is one of the things that I missed
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the most.
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And in many ways, I actually
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felt really quite saddened
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by it at first. I've come to terms with it
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now, and I realize that what I'm doing is
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actually probably more important than what I
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was doing there in some ways.
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One of the things that was really helpful was
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a conversation with my sister, who's a
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business leader in Ontario, and
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she said to me, "You're suffering from PIP
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syndrome, 'previously important
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person syndrome'." And we
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both had a good laugh about it.
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But it is true that, as
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we leave our roles, whether it's as a
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physician in active practice, whether it's
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a leadership role, whatever it is,
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we are so attached to the roles we hold,
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especially as physicians and especially
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as physician leaders, that it can be
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difficult to walk away from that
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and become a general member
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of the public.
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Where you can walk down the street and people don't
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stop to talk to you all the time.
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We talked about that transition
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for you, some of the emotional layers
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of the experience, and you've touched on some
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of them just now as well.
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I know one of the things you shared with me is that
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you are a professional
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walker.
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Maybe "professional" is not the term that you
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would use, but you took a trip recently
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that had a huge impact on you and allowed
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you to sit differently with some
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of the reflections that you just shared.
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Tell me a bit about that.
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Thank you. So I just had an absolutely
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fantastic experience this year.
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I walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela
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and I finished an 800-kilometre
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hike. I did 500 this year, 300 last
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year. It
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was life changing
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in terms of dealing with exactly what we've
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just been talking about, dealing with
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transitions.
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I guess, if I was going to try to summarize
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the lessons, I'd put it like this.
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We need time to think, and
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we need time to walk and be physical in
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our bodies. And when we are physical in
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our bodies, that's something we can do, like
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walking or whatever you love to
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do, biking or whatever it is, we
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live in our bodies differently.
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The other thing that I found so precious about
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it was, I don't remember a time where I
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had six hours in a day
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to do something that I really wanted to do.
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So it was a day to just think, and
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that was just magical.
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One of the other things that happened was that
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you're always meeting strangers,
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but you're meeting these strangers that are
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doing exactly the same thing that you are,
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they're on exactly the same tangent,
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and they're experiencing the same thing.
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They're experiencing the tough uphills, the
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tough downhills, the slogging through the
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30 km days.
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And you start off having a conversation with
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somebody who may be a complete stranger,
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but you feel this bond to them because
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they've made the same decision.
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They've made the same commitment.
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So often I found myself having conversations
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with people that were deeply, deeply
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personal or spiritual, that
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I wouldn't have at home.
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And when I really thought about why
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that was different and why I thought it was
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more meaningful than a conversation I'd
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have in the hallway of the hospital.
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Part of it was this:
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when you talk to a stranger, you
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have to coalesce your story
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in a way that you can tell it in a few minutes
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that makes sense.
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So, in other words, you sort of have to become
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a third person to your own story.
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And how you tell that narrative is
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really critical to developing that rapport.
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It's finding the language around some
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of the stuff that I'd been going through,
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especially with these transitions,
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and then delivering it in
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a short conversation.
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I found that I
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learned so much more about
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how to really put that language together.
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It also made me think about how important
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narrative is to us. I mean
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everybody's story is so interesting.
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There is no such thing as a person with a
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boring story.
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Seriously.
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You just have to find what's so interesting
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about the stories.
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And I found myself able to do that and having
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a fantastic time doing that on the Camino.
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Jan, there are so many things that you just
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said that I love. And one thing I find myself
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thinking about is something that a friend
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and colleague of mine, Ron Epstein, likes to
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say. His framing is that
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there are two stories that we can tell
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about any life, including our own, and
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we can tell the version of our lives
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as a series of stories about
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things we fail to act, or we can tell it
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as a series of things that we overcame.
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And you make me think about the fact that, in
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medicine, so often, because
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of our personality characteristics
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and the things that draw us to
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medicine, that can easily become maladaptive
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over time.
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We are very comfortable with stories
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about failures and why we're not good enough
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and how we need to flagellate ourselves to be
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better. So that positioning,
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how we tell the story when lifted out
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of the context of medicine and medical
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practice, is something
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that I think I hear you articulating in
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terms of that experience on the
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00:10:54,420 --> 00:10:55,454
Camino.
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I think you're absolutely right about that.
273
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I think, really, it
274
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is so important that we, as physicians, lift
275
00:11:02,228 --> 00:11:04,764
ourselves out of our physician roles
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in many different ways, whether it's
277
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exercise, whether it's art, whether it's
278
00:11:09,535 --> 00:11:11,837
music, whatever it is, that we
279
00:11:11,837 --> 00:11:15,041
have interests outside so that we can actually
280
00:11:15,074 --> 00:11:17,910
take that step back and look at who we are
281
00:11:17,910 --> 00:11:19,712
in the context of our lives, not just in the
282
00:11:19,712 --> 00:11:21,147
context of our practice.
283
00:11:21,147 --> 00:11:23,816
I think it makes us better physicians
284
00:11:23,816 --> 00:11:26,285
and, in many ways, it enriches
285
00:11:26,285 --> 00:11:27,687
our lives as well.
286
00:11:27,687 --> 00:11:30,423
But the question about the failures
287
00:11:30,423 --> 00:11:32,858
versus challenges is a very, very
288
00:11:32,858 --> 00:11:35,695
good one. And I have been so guilty,
289
00:11:35,695 --> 00:11:38,064
as so many people in medicine,
290
00:11:38,064 --> 00:11:40,866
especially women, despite
291
00:11:40,866 --> 00:11:42,601
how I'd say I have
292
00:11:43,669 --> 00:11:45,971
had a fairly successful career, but I still
293
00:11:45,971 --> 00:11:48,941
find myself doing the imposter syndrome thing.
294
00:11:48,941 --> 00:11:51,077
I still feel myself saying,
295
00:11:52,344 --> 00:11:54,380
"Why would they want me to do that?
296
00:11:54,380 --> 00:11:55,981
I'm not that interesting.
297
00:11:55,981 --> 00:11:58,350
Why would I? I'm not that smart," or whatever.
298
00:11:58,350 --> 00:12:01,320
I find myself still doing that,
299
00:12:01,320 --> 00:12:03,689
where I take myself out of it
300
00:12:03,689 --> 00:12:06,025
or flagellate myself from not being a little
301
00:12:06,025 --> 00:12:08,360
bit better than I was, or I only got
302
00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:10,329
99% on my exam,
303
00:12:10,329 --> 00:12:12,031
why didn't I get 100?
304
00:12:12,031 --> 00:12:14,567
And that's the kind of thing I think we do.
305
00:12:14,567 --> 00:12:17,269
I think there's reasons that we grew up looking
306
00:12:17,269 --> 00:12:19,672
at that. We wanted to be perfect, we
307
00:12:19,672 --> 00:12:21,474
certainly didn't want to make mistakes.
308
00:12:21,474 --> 00:12:23,976
I mean, as an obstetrician/gynecologist, we've
309
00:12:23,976 --> 00:12:27,012
worked so hard within our profession
310
00:12:27,012 --> 00:12:29,315
to make sure that we safety proof everything
311
00:12:29,315 --> 00:12:31,150
we do. And the idea that
312
00:12:32,451 --> 00:12:35,054
a negative outcome is going to arise is
313
00:12:35,054 --> 00:12:37,990
something that we really want to avoid.
314
00:12:38,023 --> 00:12:39,024
So, yes, we do,
315
00:12:39,024 --> 00:12:41,260
we want to be perfect.
316
00:12:41,293 --> 00:12:42,962
We don't want to see our cracks.
317
00:12:42,962 --> 00:12:45,631
We want to inspire confidence.
318
00:12:45,631 --> 00:12:48,400
And that's always the dichotomy
319
00:12:48,434 --> 00:12:49,435
that we hold in our mind.
320
00:12:49,435 --> 00:12:50,803
We want to be human.
321
00:12:50,803 --> 00:12:53,172
We want to learn from our mistakes, but we
322
00:12:53,172 --> 00:12:55,541
want to appear to be
323
00:12:55,541 --> 00:12:58,477
confident and competent
324
00:12:58,477 --> 00:13:00,446
in everything we do.
325
00:13:00,446 --> 00:13:01,514
So it's interesting.
326
00:13:01,514 --> 00:13:04,483
I mean, it's hard to hold in your heart
327
00:13:04,483 --> 00:13:07,153
the idea of vulnerability and
328
00:13:07,153 --> 00:13:10,022
complete confidence at the same time.
329
00:13:10,022 --> 00:13:12,258
And it's something that I think we struggle
330
00:13:12,258 --> 00:13:14,960
with as people and as
331
00:13:14,960 --> 00:13:15,928
physicians as well.
332
00:13:15,928 --> 00:13:18,430
Absolutely. I think it's also this idea
333
00:13:18,430 --> 00:13:20,432
that often we talk about in the context of
334
00:13:20,432 --> 00:13:22,701
mindfulness or other sort of
335
00:13:23,803 --> 00:13:26,172
self-regulation practices, that two things can
336
00:13:26,172 --> 00:13:28,541
be true at once. We can be powerful and we can
337
00:13:28,541 --> 00:13:30,476
be vulnerable. And those things are not
338
00:13:30,476 --> 00:13:32,411
mutually exclusive, as you say.
339
00:13:33,979 --> 00:13:35,181
There's another thing you said that really
340
00:13:35,181 --> 00:13:37,750
struck me, and it's about physicality
341
00:13:37,750 --> 00:13:39,652
and inhabiting our bodies because
342
00:13:41,754 --> 00:13:42,955
I think we have to push through so much
343
00:13:42,955 --> 00:13:45,191
physical discomfort during the course of our
344
00:13:45,191 --> 00:13:47,560
training and later on in our careers in
345
00:13:47,560 --> 00:13:49,929
order to be successful and also
346
00:13:49,929 --> 00:13:52,531
just do the things that we're expected to do.
347
00:13:52,531 --> 00:13:53,866
And one of the things you talk about,
348
00:13:55,100 --> 00:13:57,403
inhabiting the body to walk or
349
00:13:57,403 --> 00:13:59,104
just be present with the body.
350
00:13:59,104 --> 00:14:00,906
I always find it so curious how so many
351
00:14:00,906 --> 00:14:03,309
physicians that I know, who are very
352
00:14:03,309 --> 00:14:05,911
physically active, they're
353
00:14:05,911 --> 00:14:07,746
not just physically active.
354
00:14:07,746 --> 00:14:09,315
It's again,
355
00:14:09,315 --> 00:14:11,483
sort of highly competitive.
356
00:14:11,483 --> 00:14:12,618
You can't just run,
357
00:14:12,618 --> 00:14:13,819
you've got to do the Ironman.
358
00:14:13,819 --> 00:14:15,354
You've got to do 30k,
359
00:14:15,354 --> 00:14:16,922
it can't be 10k.
360
00:14:16,922 --> 00:14:19,592
And I wonder if you could talk about your
361
00:14:19,592 --> 00:14:21,961
thoughts in terms of the relationship
362
00:14:21,994 --> 00:14:24,630
to just being and inhabiting, as opposed
363
00:14:24,663 --> 00:14:27,032
to physical exercise or
364
00:14:29,168 --> 00:14:31,637
any kind of activity that we do with the body,
365
00:14:31,637 --> 00:14:33,973
falling again into some of those maladaptive
366
00:14:33,973 --> 00:14:35,374
patterns.
367
00:14:35,374 --> 00:14:36,609
To get digressing just for a second.
368
00:14:36,609 --> 00:14:38,544
One of the things I did during the pandemic
369
00:14:38,544 --> 00:14:41,146
was I joined a meditation group.
370
00:14:41,146 --> 00:14:42,381
And from 6:30 to 7:00
371
00:14:43,515 --> 00:14:46,051
every morning, we met on Zoom.
372
00:14:46,051 --> 00:14:48,520
A number of us had worked together previously
373
00:14:48,520 --> 00:14:50,389
as colleagues, and it was run by one of the
374
00:14:50,389 --> 00:14:53,792
nurses that I used to work at the hospital.
375
00:14:53,792 --> 00:14:56,228
Every morning we had this
376
00:14:56,228 --> 00:14:58,731
fantastic group meditation.
377
00:14:58,731 --> 00:15:01,033
One of the things I found myself struggling
378
00:15:01,033 --> 00:15:03,769
with the most was the dichotomy
379
00:15:03,769 --> 00:15:06,272
between being and doing, which
380
00:15:06,272 --> 00:15:08,540
is exactly what you're talking about.
381
00:15:08,540 --> 00:15:11,377
We are taught that we have to fill our days.
382
00:15:11,377 --> 00:15:13,545
We are taught that our days are wasted if we
383
00:15:13,545 --> 00:15:16,115
sit around doing sudokus
384
00:15:16,115 --> 00:15:18,083
or even sit around meditating. We have this
385
00:15:18,083 --> 00:15:20,085
sense that we're wasting time and time is
386
00:15:20,085 --> 00:15:21,720
valuable, and
387
00:15:23,222 --> 00:15:25,858
therefore we're bad people if we waste time
388
00:15:25,858 --> 00:15:28,961
because we're wasting this precious resource.
389
00:15:28,961 --> 00:15:31,263
I think that's part of it, that we grow up
390
00:15:31,263 --> 00:15:33,666
or we mature in
391
00:15:33,666 --> 00:15:36,135
this profession where
392
00:15:36,135 --> 00:15:38,003
every second counts.
393
00:15:38,003 --> 00:15:40,339
Certainly true in my position that literally
394
00:15:40,339 --> 00:15:42,207
a second could make the difference between
395
00:15:42,207 --> 00:15:44,910
life and death and that you have
396
00:15:44,944 --> 00:15:47,379
to be always at the top of your game, trying
397
00:15:47,379 --> 00:15:48,881
as hard as you can.
398
00:15:48,881 --> 00:15:50,683
If not, then you've wasted your day.
399
00:15:51,850 --> 00:15:54,420
That really is something that I think
400
00:15:54,420 --> 00:15:56,822
you can't live your whole career in that and not
401
00:15:56,822 --> 00:15:58,691
have it affect your psyche.
402
00:15:58,691 --> 00:16:01,060
So I think, we really should think
403
00:16:01,060 --> 00:16:03,062
about the arc of our careers.
404
00:16:03,062 --> 00:16:05,631
And so often, we're at any point in time
405
00:16:05,631 --> 00:16:07,766
where we're so concentrating on the one little
406
00:16:07,766 --> 00:16:09,969
part of our career that we're on.
407
00:16:09,969 --> 00:16:12,404
But if you think of the whole thing as an arc,
408
00:16:13,806 --> 00:16:16,442
then you get to the point where you really see
409
00:16:16,442 --> 00:16:18,811
how the whole thing fits into the totality
410
00:16:18,811 --> 00:16:21,280
of your life, if you want the sort
411
00:16:21,280 --> 00:16:23,582
of the angst of your life
412
00:16:23,582 --> 00:16:24,583
and everything else. So,
413
00:16:26,085 --> 00:16:27,653
in the beginning, you're building up your
414
00:16:27,653 --> 00:16:30,055
career and you're busy
415
00:16:30,055 --> 00:16:31,490
and you're doing everything you want to do,
416
00:16:31,490 --> 00:16:33,792
and you're establishing credibility as a
417
00:16:33,792 --> 00:16:35,194
physician and you're learning how to be a
418
00:16:35,194 --> 00:16:36,195
physician.
419
00:16:37,229 --> 00:16:39,765
But during that time, you can't stop knowing
420
00:16:39,765 --> 00:16:42,301
how to be a human, because underneath
421
00:16:42,301 --> 00:16:44,503
it all, your humanity is first of all going to
422
00:16:44,503 --> 00:16:46,338
feed your medical career.
423
00:16:46,338 --> 00:16:48,841
But secondly, it's going to prepare you
424
00:16:48,841 --> 00:16:51,310
for the rest of your arc and that middle
425
00:16:51,310 --> 00:16:53,612
part where you're practising and
426
00:16:53,612 --> 00:16:55,748
you're learning more and more, not the
427
00:16:55,748 --> 00:16:58,083
technical stuff of medicine, but the
428
00:16:58,083 --> 00:16:59,785
human part of medicine.
429
00:16:59,785 --> 00:17:02,154
And then as you go into retirement and beyond,
430
00:17:03,422 --> 00:17:06,492
we become the mentors, we become the elders,
431
00:17:06,492 --> 00:17:08,994
we become the knowledge keepers in a way that
432
00:17:08,994 --> 00:17:12,197
our society does not really
433
00:17:12,197 --> 00:17:15,801
acknowledge, as well as our First Nations
434
00:17:15,801 --> 00:17:17,970
compatriots and colleagues.
435
00:17:17,970 --> 00:17:20,372
But there is something in that part
436
00:17:20,372 --> 00:17:22,941
of your life that is so precious.
437
00:17:22,941 --> 00:17:25,344
And really what I'm looking for, more than
438
00:17:25,344 --> 00:17:27,946
anything else at this point, is opportunities
439
00:17:27,946 --> 00:17:31,083
to be a mentor, to be a guide,
440
00:17:31,083 --> 00:17:33,452
to pass on what I know, not
441
00:17:33,452 --> 00:17:35,320
about the technical stuff because it changes
442
00:17:35,320 --> 00:17:37,423
every day, but about the human part of
443
00:17:37,423 --> 00:17:38,757
medicine.
444
00:17:38,757 --> 00:17:41,060
And so I'm actually
445
00:17:41,060 --> 00:17:42,761
looking forward to the next few years and
446
00:17:42,761 --> 00:17:45,130
having some time to think and having some
447
00:17:45,130 --> 00:17:48,000
time to really be a human being
448
00:17:48,033 --> 00:17:50,335
apart from my physician identity.
449
00:17:51,603 --> 00:17:54,206
So much of what I hear
450
00:17:54,206 --> 00:17:56,208
in what you're saying, Jan, has to do with
451
00:17:56,208 --> 00:17:59,044
consolidating these sorts of fractured pieces
452
00:17:59,044 --> 00:18:01,780
of ourselves that have been cleaved
453
00:18:01,780 --> 00:18:04,216
from us for so many of the reasons
454
00:18:04,216 --> 00:18:05,551
that we've talked about in terms of our
455
00:18:05,584 --> 00:18:07,920
professional culture and all kinds of
456
00:18:07,953 --> 00:18:10,089
other forces that shape us.
457
00:18:10,089 --> 00:18:12,991
And so I want to end our time together
458
00:18:12,991 --> 00:18:15,294
with the same story that we started with,
459
00:18:15,294 --> 00:18:17,796
but with your sharing of that
460
00:18:17,796 --> 00:18:20,199
story and a moment that you
461
00:18:20,199 --> 00:18:22,434
relayed to me that was incredibly powerful.
462
00:18:22,434 --> 00:18:24,837
Could you tell me about a talk that you
463
00:18:24,837 --> 00:18:26,338
gave where you spoke about your sister
464
00:18:26,338 --> 00:18:27,372
Heather.
465
00:18:27,372 --> 00:18:29,007
Three or four years ago, I was the keynote
466
00:18:29,007 --> 00:18:31,477
speaker for my department at the University
467
00:18:31,477 --> 00:18:32,478
of British Columbia,
468
00:18:34,213 --> 00:18:35,481
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
469
00:18:36,548 --> 00:18:38,250
We have a yearly dinner, and I was the dinner
470
00:18:38,283 --> 00:18:40,786
speaker that year, and
471
00:18:40,786 --> 00:18:43,989
I made it a very personal speech.
472
00:18:43,989 --> 00:18:46,492
And interestingly, I realized that
473
00:18:46,492 --> 00:18:49,161
I had never told the story
474
00:18:49,161 --> 00:18:52,431
to my colleagues about my sister,
475
00:18:52,431 --> 00:18:54,333
that most people didn't even realize that I
476
00:18:54,333 --> 00:18:56,702
had an older sister who had died at the age
477
00:18:56,702 --> 00:18:57,703
of 23.
478
00:19:00,472 --> 00:19:02,307
I hesitated to put that story in.
479
00:19:02,307 --> 00:19:04,376
Because we have to be strong.
480
00:19:04,376 --> 00:19:06,912
We can't be vulnerable.
481
00:19:06,912 --> 00:19:09,448
We have to be seen
482
00:19:09,448 --> 00:19:12,050
as being these bastions of
483
00:19:12,050 --> 00:19:13,051
competency.
484
00:19:13,986 --> 00:19:15,787
And yet it seemed to me it was the right thing
485
00:19:15,787 --> 00:19:18,190
to do. So I told the story and I told it very
486
00:19:18,190 --> 00:19:21,326
much in the way that I told it today.
487
00:19:21,326 --> 00:19:23,495
I talked a little bit more about her and
488
00:19:23,495 --> 00:19:25,664
exactly what she was like.
489
00:19:28,433 --> 00:19:30,936
I ended the
490
00:19:30,936 --> 00:19:34,206
talk to a standing ovation
491
00:19:34,206 --> 00:19:36,141
and the number of people that came up to me,
492
00:19:36,141 --> 00:19:38,310
people who I'd known for 30 years, they had
493
00:19:42,047 --> 00:19:43,448
no idea that this was my history.
494
00:19:43,448 --> 00:19:45,517
The number of people that came up to me and
495
00:19:45,517 --> 00:19:48,287
said thank you, thank you so much
496
00:19:48,287 --> 00:19:49,454
for sharing this.
497
00:19:49,454 --> 00:19:51,089
And some of them said things that I didn't
498
00:19:51,089 --> 00:19:53,192
know, like I had a sister that died when she
499
00:19:53,192 --> 00:19:55,160
was 18, I had a brother that died, I
500
00:19:57,262 --> 00:19:58,397
had a stillbirth.
501
00:19:58,397 --> 00:20:01,133
The number of people who shared their personal
502
00:20:01,133 --> 00:20:03,869
stories with me after I shared that story
503
00:20:03,869 --> 00:20:05,938
was astounding to me.
504
00:20:05,938 --> 00:20:07,673
And I know the literature on that.
505
00:20:07,673 --> 00:20:09,741
If you actually share a personal story, you
506
00:20:09,741 --> 00:20:12,277
enable other people to share their stories.
507
00:20:13,312 --> 00:20:15,714
So I guess what I'd end up by saying is that
508
00:20:15,714 --> 00:20:18,350
we have to share our stories.
509
00:20:18,383 --> 00:20:20,118
We have to listen to other people's stories.
510
00:20:20,118 --> 00:20:22,588
And in that storytelling is
511
00:20:22,588 --> 00:20:24,957
really the depth of our humanity.
512
00:20:26,225 --> 00:20:28,126
Yeah. I think when we share those stories, as you
513
00:20:28,126 --> 00:20:30,629
articulate, often we worry
514
00:20:30,629 --> 00:20:32,965
about reaction and instead we
515
00:20:32,965 --> 00:20:34,533
think of the wrong what if, what if people
516
00:20:34,533 --> 00:20:36,835
react negatively? But what if this is what
517
00:20:36,835 --> 00:20:38,770
we can do that will actually change our
518
00:20:38,770 --> 00:20:39,504
culture?
519
00:20:39,504 --> 00:20:41,607
Exactly. So it goes back almost to what you
520
00:20:41,607 --> 00:20:44,243
were saying. We expect a negative
521
00:20:44,243 --> 00:20:46,612
reaction instead of expecting a positive
522
00:20:46,612 --> 00:20:49,281
reaction. But what if we do expect that
523
00:20:49,281 --> 00:20:50,282
positive reaction?
524
00:20:50,282 --> 00:20:52,618
We get it. And what's the worst
525
00:20:52,618 --> 00:20:54,920
that's going to happen? People won't like my
526
00:20:54,953 --> 00:20:56,922
talk. It's not like it's going to be a
527
00:20:56,922 --> 00:20:58,690
disaster.
528
00:20:58,690 --> 00:21:00,926
No one will be harmed.
529
00:21:00,926 --> 00:21:02,861
– Nobody will be harmed.
But maybe it's a first step to
530
00:21:02,861 --> 00:21:04,463
changing the world that we live in.
531
00:21:04,463 --> 00:21:05,597
Exactly, exactly.
532
00:21:05,597 --> 00:21:07,532
So it's all about really experiencing the
533
00:21:07,532 --> 00:21:10,135
whole depth of our humanity and
534
00:21:10,135 --> 00:21:12,437
using it to nurture those around us and the
535
00:21:12,437 --> 00:21:13,438
world.
536
00:21:14,606 --> 00:21:16,908
Jan, what an absolute delight
537
00:21:16,908 --> 00:21:17,909
to talk to you today.
538
00:21:17,909 --> 00:21:20,045
Thank you for sharing your story and for
539
00:21:20,045 --> 00:21:22,981
sharing your wisdom and for being exactly
540
00:21:22,981 --> 00:21:23,982
who you are.
541
00:21:25,117 --> 00:21:29,121
Thank you.
