Leaving the wrong job....?

For the last 5 years, I have had a vacation job during university holidays: I work in a museum. Not the small stuffy kind, the large, over a million visitors a year, amazing site, kind. It's had minor ups and downs over the lsat five years, but overall I have totally enjoyed it. I've been very lucky.

 This is not my museum! But it is a good one. Thanks to http://www.nyeparry.com/?page_id=619 for the picture.

I went back to work there recently after many months away (final exams) and was struck by a number of positives in this job which don't exist in medicine. I should have blogged about it at the time, but perhaps writing now will jog my thinking.

I love how in this job there is a team spirit, sometimes it's us against the world/tourists/tour group leaders/supervisors/powers that be, and that can unite a team, and sometimes it's us generally putting effort into ensuring that tourists and customers have a memorable few hours at our site, together. As a student it's difficult to really be "involved" in any hospital team, but none of the teams I've had anything to do with have had a team spirit that I could sense from my position as a student at the edge of the team.

One thing that particularly struck me is the culture of respect. It's a big group of people so of course some people grate on others a little, but even so there is a sense that the staff respect each other. In particular, people respect the supervisors, but not just because they're supervisors, but because a) they're (mostly) good at their supervising, b) are nice people, and c) they respect us. In medicine it sometimes feels like the seniors are respected because they demand respect, not because they deserve it. It creates a very different culture. It's not a big deal, and it's only noticeable when you start to think about it, or when you've been working elsewhere that doesn't have such a culture.

Recently in the museum a slight change in the system was trialled, and the supervisor asked my group of assistants for our thoughts and feedback - the senior staff genuinely want to know what the "junior" staff, the people actually implementing the changes, think about it, and will take those comments on board. It's not often that I've seen seniors in medicine asking for juniors' thoughts and feedback, except in a grilling and knowledge-testing sense.

Even at the busiest and most stressful times, people are generally happy and still so willing to help each other out. Again, not always evident in medicine. But maybe the stress is different - in the museum stressful times means long queues, angry customers, obnoxious tour group leaders etc. In medicine stressful times can mean the weight of the responsibility for patient's lives, especially when the line between a patient living or dying starts to thin. Perhaps the difference is stress contexts explains the differences in atmosphere here.


A colleague, for whom this is also "just" a vacation job, asked me today if I don't find this job a bit menial, since I have a good degree and will be a highly qualified professional (clearly indicating he finds it menial for this reason). I first told him he needed a slap, then pointed out I have two good degrees! Just because I'll be a qualified professional, in a totally different area to this job, doesn't mean this job is beneath me. It has taught me a great many skills, such as: communicating across language barriers and cultural barriers, communicating with children, diplomacy and tact in customer service, particularly with difficult customers (which transfers to diplomacy and tact in dealing with patients, particularly "difficult patients"), conveying complicated information in a way the recipient will understand, and the ever-useful skills of voice projection and crowd control. None of these are medical skills, but all of them are likely to be useful during my medical career. That's not something to sniff at.
There is the additional benefit that this role has enabled me to be competent and above all, confident, in dealing with many, many people, and confidence is not something one can acquire overnight, or just by magic or good intentions. The confidence I've gained from putting effort into this job, and knowing from the responses from colleagues and customers that I'm doing it well and making a small diference to someone's day, is something I couldn't have gained simply from being a medical student. A medical student I've found is frequently too much of a fifth wheel to have much of a sense of achievement (that's not to say that achievements aren't made, but just not on the same level).


Now the terrible bit is that I realised recently how much I enjoy this job, and how many of the things are appreciate are not present in medicine. I could only wonder why I'm leaving a job I've enjoyed, for one that predominantly scares me, in an environment which I don't always enjoy or feel respected or comfortable in. It feels a little bit mad.

Perhaps part of the reason I've enjoyed the job is because I know I won't be doing it forever, and perhaps if I were I would have a different approach to it. But I hadn't really thought about the fact that I would one day be leaving this job, in order to take up my forever-job, (the one I've been studying seven year for) but now it's suddenly here, and I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm really not sure if I want to!

I can at least be thankful that I've had employment which I enjoy, to return to every holiday (and some weekends), in a group where I feel part of the team even if I've been away for months, and have been able to go through my education with far more financial security than I otherwise would have.

After all, if medicine all goes pear-shaped, I might always have a nice job to return to! I could be a museum-doctor.

First, I have to get through, and make the most of, my last day tomorrow. It feels like the end of an era, and it feels silly to leave a job I like*. Needs must....

(*It was suggested to me that I'd have enough holiday from my doctor-job to return to my museum job occasionally, but 1. I do quite like the idea of having a holiday which is entirely a holiday, no job or revision or essay-writing to have to do, and 2. most importantly, I couldn't justify it. I'd be on a nice NHS salary, taking part-time holiday work away from school leavers, students and other people who really need the money, when I really won't - that's not right, and I wouldn't have particularly wanted someone earning good money to take my shifts away from me the last few years, when I've needed the money.)

Carer's holiday, and a holiday for the carers

As I discussed extensively with Steph at Steph's two girls, I have a sister with Asperger syndrome (an autistic spectrum disorder). This week we went on holiday together. It was the first time she'd been away without our parents, so while it was a welcome break for them, it was a bit of an adventure for her.

My mother was convinced we would come back not speaking to each other, but we were even still laughing with each other.

However, I've come back with a newfound respect for people who can organise and take responsibility for a holiday and for other people's needs, when the other people can't communicate those needs. Taking care of meeting someone's needs without knowing what the exact needs are at that time and place is a skill I haven't yet perfected.

I've also come back with a newfound understanding of the little difficulties in coping that, when added together, make an independent life currently impossible. And a wonder about how outsiders, such as the lovely people at ATOS who will assess her disability living allowance, can possibly notice or understand such minutiae, and comprehend how someone who at first seems competent if a bit odd, actually requires extensive support.

But we survived, and had a lovely (if exhausting) time. Would we do it again? Yes, but preferably with better communication on what each person's preferances, needs, and limitations are, with updates when they change. That would be the life...

And also ideally with a sense that all the independence training that the holiday involved was in some way wanted or appreciated. It's difficult to have no idea but feel the need to pursue the ideas of independence and gaining skills anyway.

But yes, we would do it again.

Comics in medicine

I went to a really interesting talk on comics in medicine, and since it was fascinating I might as well write about it.

There were three speakers, one a doctor who writes comics about her experiences in medicine, one who wrote a graphic novel about the death of her two year old son, and people's reactions to this, and one who wrote a graphic novel about caring for his dying father. I haven't read the novels, though bought them today for post-exam enjoyment. I've never read a graphic novel at all, actually, but have been introduced to the idea of comics being useful for talking about and learning about health and medicine and particularly mental health from I do not have an eating disorder, from which I have learnt so much.

The talks were fascinating, though more academic than I expected - there were discussions on reflection, ethics, narratives and other complex concepts; for some of it I had to stretch my brain cells a bit remembering back to what I learnt about ethics in theology/religious studies A Level! Not what I'd been expecting from a talk about comics, but really interesting. Especially how comics are in the middle of some Venn diagrams, such as  medicine, ethics and art, and also medicine, humour/humanity, and I can't quite remember the third part, it might have been ethics again.

Some points that particularly struck me - a discussion of the expertise of lived experience versus learned expertise. That's one to think about. I think a lot of medical students and junior doctors are probably lacking in the lived experience, but still feel like, or are made to feel like, experts.

Another point was that these comics and graphic novels were not written for catharsis, not to make the author feel better, but more to develop a narrative, "writing to work out what you're writing about" but with drawing as well as writing. One speaker said that catharsis dries up after 10 pages. That struck me since I said the other day that blogging could be cathartic... but I don't want it to be just cathartic, I want it to develop some ideas (I have many) and raise issues and share thinking and not just be a way for me to feel better. So that's my plan.

I also got a super-cool person cartoon-comicbook-character drawn specially for me inside one of the books I bought. It's wishing me luck for my exams.

And I've got recommendations of other things I should read when exams are over. I also read something that reminded me of my intention to read Armistead Maupin when exams are over, must remember that.

So overall, an event worth attending, really made me think, and wonderful to get away from textbooks and learn about amazing books for a bit instead.


Made me kind of wish I could draw comics, and I'd thought that my total lack of artistic skills would make that impossible, but I learnt that comics don't have to be artistically skilled... but I think I have too many words to fit into comic format. And I don't have the kind of imagination for it. Maybe I'll give it a go one day.

And now for something completely different...

Yes, I am a fan of Monty Python.

Anyway, a quote I read today made me think. A genderqueer performer, CN Lester, who identifies as neither male nor female, and seems to have something to do with opera, did an interview with the Pink Paper, about talked about transphobia and descrimination they'd experienced. This follows on:
"It’s enough to keep you indoors…

Well…. I think we’re so f**king hard on ourselves anyway. I don’t know a single trans person who doesn’t spend every single day sort of going: “Am I OK, am I allowed to go out into the outside world, Oh God, Oh God, it’s all so tragic!” I sometimes even wonder what will happen if I’m in a terrible accident."

This is why I stopped - I just can't be arsed with all of that crap. I used to think that "matching the inside with the outside", ie. presenting in the way that I identify (whatever that may be) was a big deal. I got over it. Now I feel like what's on the inside is not really anybody's business but the people I choose to share it with, and that the outside doesn't matter all that much anyway. I'm still of queer/alternative/non-binary/whatever the hell I don't know and I don't care gender, I'm just not as loud about it. It's not a big deal any more, and that makes my life so much easier. I never got the kind of harassment that CN Lester describes (maybe they do a better job of presenting how they want to than I ever did) but I'm definitely less paranoid now. I have no desire to be the centre of attention, and now that I'm not obviously "gender freak" I'm not, or at least I don't feel I am. Unless I want to be, which would be around friends, and often my presentation could change then anyway.

I think my deciding it wasn't a big deal tied in with having bigger deals to deal with: being ill and having surgery, and actually paying attention to being ill - I think gender provided a great distraction from my health when I was getting sicker in London (in retrospect, distraction/denial didn't work out great, but maybe needs must, coping mechanisms etc); being in Germany, a new country where my language wasn't great. It was a lot better than my partner's, so I had to communicate for the two of us for a while. Finding my feet in a thoroughly new job, working out how to fit in and understand Germans (not the language, the people). And, other than the other half, being totally independent. Bigger deals.

I'm happy enough, but I still feel like I miss queer stuff, queer spaces, and it's been over two years since I was last at NUS LGBT which, despite its bitchiness and cliqueyness, had wonderful people and felt like home. Bar Wotever, places where nobody cared - I miss that.
Stay Beautiful, a club night for beautiful people of every gender (I don't know if that's their tagline, but it fits) is coming near us soon so we'll get glammed up/transed up and try not to care what we look like and have fun. I love make-up, in a performative way. Like Michael Stipe (out of off of REM).

However, here's a quote with a different perspective, a comment from an American article about transphobia:
"In the mean time, a very few of us try to combat transphobia by being publicly gender-transgressive while yet maintaining acceptance by friends, family, and colleagues. It's an awkward balancing act that few find personally satisfying."
I do sort of feel, occasionally, like I'm letting the side down. By being so fitting-in, by no longer making my gender a statement. I long for the world to change, yet I'm not really helping. I do other things: I can educate, and next time I'm at the GUM clinic (I'm on GUM/HIV/Infectious Diseases currently) I want to talk about why the clinic is so gender segregated and why that works for everyone.
When I was challenging stereotypes, and more than that challenging general gender perceptions, I guess it was something I was little bit proud of. In a "look, I'm doing my own little bit to help change the world, broaden people's experiences of people, and make things slightly better for the future".

But as the quote says, few find it personally satisfying. I know some who do, and good for them. They've got bags more confidence than I'll ever have. Maybe I'll get back to playing my part and not letting the side down a little more in the future, when I'm more settled and more confident, and less trying to fit in.
Hospitals and medical school definitely don't encourage being different. It's like being the odd one out, and I'm clearly that already, particularly in my year where I know very few people (ok, I know 1/6 of the year. Not much). Maybe it's just that I feel an odd one out, and that's a harder thing to get out of your system.

Anyway, enough waffle. Reasons to be, and not to be, openly, actively and obviously of queer gender. And why I'm not, but sometimes wish I was. My identity isn't a whole lot different, I just don't spend time thinking about it - it still confuses me. I think it always will. No big deal - I've got bigger deals to focus on.


I've just read another quote that fits in to this quite nicely. It's from a trans awareness article, linked to by the previous article:
"she belives that transgender people should have the right to "exist without definition". The only thing I do know is the fact that I don't know," she says. "I live my life not knowing, but that's OK"."
Oh look, I'm not the only one. Always nice.