“On May 26th, 2003,
Aaron Ralston was hiking,
a boulder fell on his right hand,
he waited four days,
he then amputated
his own arm with a pocketknife.
On New Year’s Eve,
a woman was bungee jumping,
the cord broke,
she fell into a river
and had to swim back to land
in crocodile-infested waters
with a broken collarbone.
Claire Champlin was smashed in the face
by a five-pound watermelon
being propelled by a slingshot.
Mathew Brobst was hit by a javelin.
David Striegl was actually
punched in the mouth by a kangaroo.
The most amazing part of these stories
is when asked about the experience
they all smiled, shrugged and said
“I guess things could’ve been worse.”
So go ahead,
tell me you’re having a bad day.
Tell me about the traffic.
Tell me about your boss.
Tell me about the job you’ve been trying to quit for the past four years.
Tell me the morning is just a townhouse burning to the ground and the snooze button is a fire extinguisher.
Tell me the alarm clock
stole the keys to your smile,
drove it into 7 am
and the crash totalled your happiness.
Tell me.
Tell me how blessed are we to have tragedy
so small it can fit on the tips of our tongues.
When Evan lost his legs he was speechless.
When my cousin was assaulted
she didn’t speak for 48 hours.
When my uncle was murdered,
we had to send out a search party
to find my father’s voice.
Most people have no idea
that tragedy and silence
often have the exact same address.
When your day is a museum of disappointments,
hanging from events that were outside of your control,
when you feel like your guardian angel put in his two weeks notice two months ago
and just decided not to tell you,
when it seems like God
is just a babysitter that’s always on the phone,
when you get punched in the oesophagus by a fistful of life.
Remember,
every year
two million people die of dehydration.
So it doesn’t matter if
the glass is half full or half empty.
There’s water in the cup.
Drink it and stop complaining.
Muscle is created by lifting things
that are designed to weigh us down.
When your shoulders are heavy
stand up straight and call it exercise.
Life is a gym membership
with a really complicated cancellation policy.
Remember,
you will survive,
things could be worse,
and we are never given
anything we can’t handle.
When the whole world crumbles,
you have to build a new one
out of all the pieces that are still here.
Remember,
you are still here.
The human heart beats
approximately 4,000 times per hour
and each pulse,
each throb,
each palpitation is a trophy,
engraved with the words
“You are still alive.”
You are still alive.
So act like it.”
― Rudy Francisco, Helium
We tend to go through life with a “is the glass half full or half empty mindset” and we never look if the glass is broken. We have days where everything is going well, and the glass looks half full, just to have bad days where the glass looks even less than half. Maybe we go through motions because our glass of life is broken. This is similar to my days in clinical practice. Some days my glass is half full, whereas other days my glass is half empty. These ups and downs are because my clinical practice glass is broken, or maybe just not formed fully yet.
It is difficult to go into clinical practice as a 3rd-year student. My glass of knowledge is not full yet and there is too much to still learn. However, it is expected of me to treat a patient and be beneficial in their recovery. Medical professionals are expected to uphold the highest behavioral and ethical standards. Medical educators should provide students with medical information, directions on how to use this knowledge, clinical skills and guidance on how to be professional (Hendelman & Byszewski, 2014). How can we as students then still try to gain the necessary knowledge and perform in a professional manner without any spills? I sometimes feel like the alarm clock stole my smile but then my patients went through the most and still said that it could have been worse.
Patients often only seem like another number to treat, somebody to help get a technique signed off because everything seems rushed. However, when doing this, we can cause the patient to experience a day that is a museum of disappointment. These museums of disappointments as stated in the poem can be all the disappointment our patients experience when we do not treat them holistically and to the best of our abilities. It might be difficult to always be ethical and have empathy with my patients. Studies have shown that there is a decline in empathy for patients from undergraduate students the longer they study (Quince, Thiemann, Benson, & Hyde, 2016). However, every pulse that is taken, the throb that is felt should spark the words from the poem, “you are still alive” my patient is still alive, and I should act like it and treat them holistically and ethically.
I am bound to spill, and my glass will crack but as stated in the second last paragraph in the poem, “When the whole world crumbles, you have to build a new one out of all the pieces that are still here”.
References
Francisco, R. (2018). Glass Half Empty Quotes. Retrieved from goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/glass-half-empty
Hendelman, W., & Byszewski, A. (2014). Formation of medical student professional identity: categorizing lapses of professionalism, and the learning environment. BMC Med Educ., 139.
Quince, T., Thiemann, P., Benson, J., & Hyde, S. (2016). Undergraduate medical students’ empathy: current perspectives. Adv Med Educ Pract., 443–455.
2 thoughts on “We focus on if the glass is half full or half empty that we do not realize it is broken – Megan Bekker 3635212”
Hi Megan
I enjoyed reading the poem you chose to reflect on your clinical experience as I am sure we are all too familiar of the concept of feeling half full and forget to give gratitude for good things we have in our lives.
The content of your reflection vaguely reflects the module content. Although you do speak of beneficence, sympathy and how your personal life, as well as academic requirements, can affect your ability to treat patients to the best of your ability, these topics are only mentioned in your reflection but do not come across as the topic your writing, So for your final draft you should try to relate the poem and your reflection back to central ideas in the ethics module.
In the reflection, you made some claims concerning barriers to meet expectations to be beneficial to a patient as a third-year student. To reinforce this claim you could look for evidence to support that undergrad students do not have the necessary skills and knowledge to treat a patient effectively. A claim was also made about how academic requirements change your perspective of the patients, so perhaps you could look for evidence regarding the relationship between sympathy and academics in health care sciences.
There are a few errors with regards to grammar and spelling in your reflection:
1st paragraph sentence 1: Insert inverted commas for “is the glass half full or half empty mindset”
1st paragraph sentence 2: change “were” to “where”
1st paragraph sentence 6: change “other” “others” or “other days”
2nd paragraph sentence 1: add a hyphen to “3rd-year student”
4th paragraph sentence 1: add a “to” between “bound” and “spill”
I enjoyed reading the poem and reflection as it was well written and the poem was well linked to the reflection. I hope my comments can help to make it more enjoyable than it already is.
Hi Megan
Rudy Francisco is one of my favourite poets and I enjoyed reading the poem you chose to reflect on.
Content: The image you used is a good representation of your writing. Your reflection does not fully reflect the module content.
Argument: In your reflection you talk about how your clinical practise glass is broken and how you are expected to treat and be beneficial in the patients recovery. I suggest that you relate this to the ethics module and be specific on how the knowledge spills impact professionalism.
You then talk about how patients are just another number and somebody to help get a technique signed of, I also suggest that you relate this to your clinical practise glass and specific things in the ethics module.
References: In your reflection you about how you do not have enough knowledge and how this impact whether or not you are beneficial to your patient. I suggest that you try and find research that shows how third year students do not have enough knowledge to treat patient effectively.
Overall I enjoyed reading your piece.