Do We Really Want to be Heroes?

Early riser.

As I pulled myself out of bed to turn off my aptly named iPhone alarm, I shoved down the existential dread awaiting my arrival.

This was it.  After weeks of digging into everything Coronavirus related, from physician Facebook groups to non-peer reviewed articles of case studies with n=3, I was heading back into the hospital to face this new reality.

But it could wait.

Standing in the dark, I listened to my two dogs’ rhythmic snoring in tandem.  Light beams sneaking past the curtains guided my way to my husband’s shoulders, chest slowly rising and falling as he lay in his usual belly-down sleeping position.  Settling back into the warmth of our bed, my hand traced the glow across his old Hollister sweatshirt as I shook my head and smirked.

No self respecting grown ass man should be wearing this brand anymore.

But the softness of the well worn fabric could not be denied.

Stirring, J turned to his side and pulled me in close.  Eyes burned and nostrils flared as I tried to forget this would be the last time we’d hug for another 3 weeks.  My attempts to be mindful and in-the-moment failed as I recalled the previous night’s discussion.

“So how long are you going to self-quarantine for, M?”

“Definitely for the week I’m rounding.  And… since I’ll probably end up seeing COVID patients, probably for another 2 weeks after that.”

“… makes sense.”

My rule follower who hated being called a rule follower.  Would he even remember this moment?  J was notorious for being comatose until his 2nd cup of coffee, so… unlikely.

Still, we lay like this until I could no longer ignore the warning bells that I was going to be late.

No more slow, easy breaths.  No more counting his bradycardic heartbeats in the 40s, the rhythm that set off alarms when he recovered post-operatively from his collarbone surgery.  No more whimpers from my blind dog Ernie, probably dreaming of ramming into walls that came out of nowhere.

Sighing, I kissed J’s cheek, petted the dogs and mentally waved them goodbye as I faced my reality for the next 3 weeks.

3 days of spending time with my husband and dogs, book-ended by 3 weeks of self-isolation x 2.  In the last 16 years, we’d never spent more than a week apart.

That’s the entirety of your adult life, M.  You’re allowed to grieve this.  You’re allowed to hate this new normal.

But no tears fell.

Not on the drive in, eerily devoid of the traffic I usually found myself in.  Not upon entering the hospital’s full parking structure, the only sign of life to be found in the city.  Not while craning my head up and to the right to allow the nurse with full mask, face shield and gown to check my temperature via laser before entering the hospital.

This was what I wanted.  I chose this.  Hiding away at home was simply not an option I personally could live with.

But as I scrolled down the Instagram and Facebook posts on National Doctor’s day, the day right before I returned to the hospital, my discomfort became more and more apparent.

Thank you to all the REAL AMERICAN HEROES who are on the frontlines of the Coronavirus!

#HEROESofCOVID #healthcareheroes

And my personal favourite from the scrub brand, Figs:

Extraordinary times call for awesome humans.

What does that even mean?

Semantics.  Clichés to make the sayer feel good about themselves while simultaneously distancing themselves from the shit storm that’s arriving on our doorstep.

Because we know what happens to “real heroes”, don’t we?

Real Heroes

I can’t help but think of my lifetime’s first great national catastrophe that I remember vividly – 9/11.

“Look for the helpers,” said Mr. Rogers.

And we did.

Police men and women, firefighters, EMT’s, military, medical professionals, regular people – all running in to be first responders.

What bravery!  What courage!

What heroes.

Monuments constructed.  Moments of silence held in their name.

“Never forget”, we said.

Yet we did, didn’t we?  We moved on with our lives and went on about our business as usual, other than the occasional annoyance at airport TSA security checkpoints.

We forgot about the aftermath, the respiratory illnesses and cancers in these heroes.  We put off supporting them during their time of need, to the point that the first responders’ September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act didn’t even get finalized until summer of 2019, a full 18 years later.  Indeed, if it weren’t for Jon Stewart persistently shaming Congress, these heroes may never had the continued relief they’d been searching for.

We could be heroes

Selfless.  Compassionate.  Answering the call in our greatest time of need without hesitation.

We rally behind our heroes, using their ideal to spread beautiful messages of solidarity and good will.

But we ignore the shadow trailing behind the pedestals we place them on:

Our heroes’ lives are the price we’re willing to pay to keep us safe and secure.

For years, doctors have taken on the hero’s cape as we “save lives”, but intentionally glossed over this section of our social contract.

“We’re too important,” we told ourselves.  “They would never lay us down as sacrificial lambs.”

And yet, as this pandemic unfolds, I see the panic ensue in private Facebook groups and messages sent to me over social media.  They are aghast over leadership’s willingness to throw them into battle with a flimsy plastic face shield in front of re-worn masks, yelling at us Remember your oath while they hide away in their castles built with the years of work we’ve already given them.  Different iterations of the same question keep popping up:

“How could they?  Don’t they know how VALUABLE we are?”

As I close out my browser windows in an attempt to prevent me from taking on their pain and frustration, I can’t help but sadly shake my head.

That cape was never meant to protect us.  It was to protect them.

If we were valuable as people to them, would they have continued to try to squeeze out every ounce of productivity from us, leaving us as mere shells at the end of our work days?

If our thoughts and opinions carried weight, wouldn’t they have invited us to play more of a role in shaping our institutions instead of brushing us off and saying, “You only need to worry about the medicine.  Let the experts do their jobs”?

If they really cared, would they have perpetuated a system that convinces a doctor a day to commit suicide because there is no other alternative?

Those of us who were already struggling with burnout and moral injury know where our real value lies to these healthcare organizations and corporations – the money our work brings to their coffers.

It was never about protecting us as valuable resources.

Now we turn to society searching for help, but find ourselves threatened by leadership for merely speaking out.

Again, my peers are horrified by their callousness but all I see is simply a continuation of the same abusive pattern:

• Pull out the heroic ideal of a doctor
• Hold us to said perfect standard with phrases like, “But think of the patients!” and “Remember your oath!”
• Leave us trying to clean up their mess while they roll in the cash, collected from patients’ and doctors’ collective blood, sweat and tears

Meanwhile, society holds us to the same standard of the unblemished sacrificial lamb.

Doctors must run into danger!  We must pull ungraduated medical students, retired physicians, doctors outside of their specialties to the front lines!  And they should all do this for free, out of the goodness of their hearts!

And when we have served our purpose, the aftermath of our goodwill may be met with the same ennui as those 9/11 first responders, or perhaps even more vehemence as society returns to the stance of,

“Well, doctors make good money anyways.  They know what they signed up for.”

So goes the tale of our healthcare heroes.

But my husband… he doesn’t want a hero.

He can’t hug the ideal of a hero tightly in the stillness of the morning.

A hero in quarantine can’t have mid-afternoon coffee dates or leisurely springtime doggy walks with hands intertwined – we must settle for waving at each other through windows because my touch is reserved for my patients.

The popularity of the ultimate hero who dies in service of others does nothing to assuage his unease and angst when I leave for work in the darkness.

Don’t call me a hero.

I am still willing to fulfill my part of this social contract; even my husband wasn’t able to convince me otherwise.

But let’s stop the pretense and the games.

I will not be mollified by these feel-good attempts to calm me down.  It’s a shiny distraction to reinforce our subservience in the role the system has designed for us.  A strategy to handcuff us to a bad situation, exacerbated by incompetent leadership.

I never went into this for the cape, kudos or applause, thus heaping more of it on via countless internal emails or social media campaigns does nothing to inspire me.

Inspire me by having integrity.

By following up words with actions.

By reassuring me that my moral compass still holds true in the face of all this fear, instead of shouting at me to do the right thing.

By showing me that you truly do care.

Is that too much to ask?

***

Photo taken of the aftermath of the Eagle Creek Fire on the Angels Rest Trail.