August 29, 2021

Filler 3: Reflection


Certainly, I didn’t plan to wake up on my birthday to being informed I misdiagnosed a patient.

However, I’m grateful to meet a few people who distracted me from being down the whole day. Conversations upon conversations later made me realize perhaps it’s not the issues of confidence and competency, rather the perfectionist side of me that’s making me afraid to take the next step until I’m ‘perfectly’ ready. That in turn discourages me from calling the shots until I have all the facts in my hands and remember everything in my mind.

It’s probably the reason I’m being too hard and too harsh on myself- that every mistake, small or big exposes my weakness and vulnerability. And this in turn drags me down further, unable to move on and got stuck at the “fact” and “conclusion” that I’m not good and I’m incompetent. That mantra kept on playing at the back of my mind until I believe that it was who I am.

Forgetting that I’m human and that human err.
Forgetting the fact that I have achieved success in the past, no matter how small they were.
Forgetting that I overcame the trials and tribulations in the past.
Forgetting that I got up from many falls, with the help of numerous people and the strength that God lend.

Maybe the fact that God sent a senior officer to point out the miss I made was meant to be. Maybe if I didn’t find the weakness and “confusion” that the patient had, we wouldn’t even diagnose the stroke, and maybe if that happened worse things could happen.

And to realize this now, finally putting the pieces together after such a long time, we came to the conclusion what’s meant to be was meant to be and if we make mistake, learn from it and don’t make the same mistake in the future.

And that I’m not perfect.
No one’s perfect.