Our Responsibility as Advocates and Healthcare Professionals

Written by: James Kim | Edited by: Arshad Mohammed

The summer before my junior year, I volunteered to become an adaptive sports instructor for the non-profit Achieve Tahoe. Ever since I was 4 years old, my grandfather had taught me both alpine and water skiing – memories of which I still find extremely nostalgic. Thus, I came with a passion to share my love for outdoor sports, but more importantly, a passion to create the same fun and exciting experiences I had with my grandfather for others. 

One of my favorite participants I worked with that summer was a 6-year old named “Emily.” Emily always came early for her lessons, and she always had the biggest smile and the cutest squeals of joy as she looked towards the lake and got excited to waterski. However, over the course of 3 different days and 3 different lessons, she was never really able to get the “balance” of waterskiing. I would try to teach her through all sorts of different options – having her hold onto different ropes, different hand positions, having someone on the boat try and tell her the directions as she water-skied, etc. It seemed like no matter what I did, however, I just could not convey the proper technique she needed to waterski. After the end of the 3rd day, I could only think about how I failed as mentor and as teacher. I asked myself – what could I do differently to help her succeed in the future?

As I was taking part of the end-of-day staff meeting, Emily’s mother came up to our group and thanked us all for our hard work. She said that she never even thought that Emily would want to go into the water, nonetheless be excited to try waterskiing every day. Despite the three days of what I would have previously called “failures,” her mother noted that Emily always came back home with a great smile. She would beg her mother to try more water-skiing since it was “berry berry fun,” to her. 

When I think about this experience in hindsight, I learned a key lesson that success means something different for everyone. What one deems to be a significant accomplishment is different than what another deems to be so. But with that being said, as an advocate for others, we then have the responsibility to not also project our own feelings of what is “success” especially when thinking about others and their goals and motivations. 

As future healthcare professionals and leaders in medicine, I believe that it is important for us to provide re-affirming and patient-centered care. To me, this means recognizing the needs and goals of individuals and their particular lifestyles, and how I could create an environment people my patiens feel like they could succeed and achieve their goals in spite of their healthcare issues. So now I ask – what does this mean for you?