Resilience: The Art of Failing Forward | Sasha Shillcutt, MD, MS, FASE | TEDxUNO

perfection perfection is a word that I have strived my entire life my entire career perfection is a word that I thought if I just was perfect if I could get the perfect score if I could look perfect if I could score perfectly on this test if I could get the perfect procedure for this patient if I could be the perfect mom I would find joy I would find grit I would find resilience and I would find success I'm here to tell you that I have actually learned quite the opposite I've learned throughout my career my time as a mother my time as a wife as a sister as a daughter my time as a woman physician in a very male-dominated field but the biggest joy in my life the biggest success the biggest resilience the tenacity the fun the meaning has come from my imperfections has come from a place of failure if we think about what success is what resilience is what makes people really gritty and what they are we think about what's on top of the iceberg we think about all of the things that allow people to succeed and when we stand on stages like I'm standing now we often brag about our grants we've received our publications all of the awards and accolades and all the wonderful things that we have done we don't show the world most times what's underneath the iceberg all of our failures our trials our tribulations for example this is me this past week I spent the last week in a tropical location and the picture of me that you see up here in the green is what I posted on my Instagram feed I look perfect my skin as a glow you can imagine that there's butterflies swirling on top of my head but in reality I spent several hours in my hotel room thinking about this talk working on different projects eating a bag of Twizzlers I didn't post out on Instagram because that's not what we post and that's not what we project we want to project perfection as I thought about my life and I thought about what I want to share today I want to go back and talk to a young doctor she'll cut I want to tell her things that I want to tell you today number one I want to tell you that resilient people share their failure they're not afraid to admit when they've made a big mistake or a small mistake they don't hide behind a veil of perfection in 1961 an ob/gyn from Australia posted a five sentence letter to The Lancet and he basically said I think I've failed I've noticed that I've been treating nausea and vomiting and it's giving a sedative to several of my patients who are pregnant and those patients have given birth to stillborn infants or infants who are missing limbs I think that this is something that I've actually contributed to and given to my patients has anyone else noticed this it took five sentences in an immense of failure of a complication to save thousands and tens of thousands of future infants that drug was thalidomide and his ability to share that which we depend on in science we depend on sharing negative studies things that come out complications but when we it comes to ourselves we often don't share those failures we're too afraid I would also tell her doctor she'll cut resilient people turn vulnerability into their strengths they're not afraid to see what they have failed their weak spots they're not afraid to surround themselves with people that will actually point out those weak spots they're very open about them I would tell a young doctor she'll cut that resilient people to be resilient you want to normalize failure in my profession physicians have one of the highest suicide rates in the in the country we are on the frontlines taking care of people we see people at their most vulnerable state and it takes a toll on us and it's devastating I personally have lost four of my colleague friends to suicide and there was a some research team in 2013 swak and Schweitzer who decided they were going to study this they were going to look at physicians who work in high acuity area T areas such as surgeons and they're going to try to figure out what makes this surgeon who may have suffered a complication a failure a professional failure get back up and go on versus his colleague or her colleague who has a huge amount of anxiety depression and Sudi suicidal ideation what makes these two surgeons different they found four main variables and one of them was so interesting one of them was that the physicians who were resilient the surgeons who could go through a very difficult complication or professional failure and then bounce back up they had what they called a margin of failure they accepted that about themselves being in this field they were going to have complications they were likely going to fail sometimes versus the other physicians who had a perfection allistic ideal which is what we're trained to do in medicine from a very early age we're trained to get perfect scores get a perfect grade so that we can get to the perfect college and the perfect fellowship and those physicians that were the most resilient accepted a margin of failure I would also tell you and tell her the early the young doctor she'll cut who thought it was great to be perfectionist a very important thing probably the most difficult thing about failure I would tell her to seek feedback about her failure I want to take you to a very tragic story this is a true story it happened to me I had a very successful medical school career I was in the top of my class I made the Honor Society in medicine I was the chief resident and I never shied away from difficult cases I took a lot of pride in the fact that I was very very good clinically and nothing really could stop me and I wasn't afraid and it was about six months into being an attending as a cardiac anesthesiologist who works in the operating room and I was on call one night and the buck stopped with me while I had about ten other anesthesiology physicians who were there in training I was the attending on call in a very small patient came in and through a series of complications and very unfortunate events our operating room team lost that patient and I can still hear as I stand here today the beeping of the heartbeat and the horrible sound of silence I was so devastated because this had never happened to me before and while the fax would reveal that it was not completely my error that it was not really anyone's error it was a series of events and a very sick patient that didn't matter I was convinced that this was my fault I went home in the morning and I sat comatose on my couch I didn't know how to even process the events of the night because I had never failed like this I thought about it I thought about walking into the hospital the next day and seeing another patient and I couldn't bring myself to do it I called my husband I wrote a letter of resignation and I told my husband I'm going to go to work tomorrow and turn in my letter of resignation to which he said okay if that's what you need to do of course in his mind he was thinking of all of our student loans having a freakout but he came home that night and sat with me and I still hadn't moved I just was overcome with grief I was overcome with shame and I couldn't face going back to the hospital I felt so terrible that I had contributed to this and about nine o'clock at night my phone ring on the other end of the line was one of my partners he was in his early 70s at the time is just about to retire a very long successful career and he asked me a question he said how are you doing and on the other end of the line I couldn't speak I just sobbed and the most amazing thing happened he sobbed - and then he started to share with me a similar event that happened to him and he started offering me feedback about my failure he started offering me feedback about this complication that I never thought I would have he started giving me and telling me and normalizing through his own experience what had happened and what I needed to do to process it and then the last thing he said to me changed the trajectory of my career changed Who I am as a person as a mother as a wife as a sister as a friend he said tomorrow you have to go back to work you have to get up and you have to take care of the next patient who needs you and the next patient who needs you and he taught me how to seek feedback for my failure that it was okay to fail and to process it and to work through it and to ask for help I would also tell dr. shell cut the most important thing here is to fail forward I would tell her that she's going to fail a lot and it's okay to fall down as long as you stand back up brush yourself off look to your right and your left see who's around and seek feedback and I'll leave you with this last story now let's fast-forward 1213 years and dr. shell cut is in the operating room of the cardiac operating room and we're doing the case and her cell phone rings and it's her 13 year old son who's an hour away and just finished a basketball game he had to ride the bus cuz his mom is working and his dad is working so he's by himself at this out-of-town basketball game and he whispers to me mom you have to come pick me up and of course instantly I think that he's broken his arm he's hurt himself I said well why do I need to come get you what's going on well I got fouled with five seconds left in the game I went to the free-throw line we were down by one and I missed both of my free-throws I really need you to come get me mom I can't get on the bus know what none of my teammates will look at me I let everybody down it's really bad here mom you got to come get me I can't I can't get on that bus and ride home with my teammates everything inside me wanted to be mama bear I'm coming to get you baby just hold on but I knew it was my moment to teach him so I said to him what I want to leave you with get on the bus you have to go get on the bus and through tears in the operating room I told my son I have been there I know what that's like to let everybody down and feel shame but that's called life and you have to get on the bus so I hope that I have left you with some inspiration today and I hope that maybe you've thought of a time that you failed maybe you're still holding on to that shame fail forward and remember to get on the bus [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 61,733

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Social Science, Development, Failure, Self improvement

Id: bBlmvAITMrg

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 28 2019