Kirkepiscatoid

That it may please thee to inspire us, in our several callings,
to do the work which thou givest us to do with singleness of
heart as thy servants, and for the common good,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.

Oh, man. I have enough trouble thinking about ONE calling, let alone several! Not to mention I have issues with “compartmentalization” so “singleness of heart” is not exactly an easy thing for me, either.

It sounds odd, but it took me sixteen years to realize I was “called” to medicine. It took a job, that in some ways, to most people, would not want, for me to realize it.

Every upward educational move I ever made was based on the fact, “It’s a job where you can have respect and help people at the same time.”

When I went to college, my degree was a biology education degree, and I became a high school/junior high teacher “because it was a professional job with respect, and I would do some people some good in the process.”

When I went on to medical school, again, “it’s a good living, it comes with a title of respect, and in the meantime, I’ll be able to help people.”

But the word “calling” never set well with me. Saying one is “called” to something, in some ways, seems so “faux noble.”

I spent sixteen years even wondering if I did the right thing. It started with second guessing the wisdom of my medical school admissions committee. I knew people in school who would say they were “called to medicine”. Mostly, they were either fundamentalist Christians, or BS artists.

I had to work hard in residency, with not a lot of positive feedback; occasionally even some seriously negative feedback. I was known as a “hard worker” but not very “book smart.” I realize now that I have some aspects of a tracking reading disorder, and some facets of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It didn’t really reveal itself until I had to start digesting hundreds of pages of info at a pop. I had no desire to subspecialize. I liked being a generalist in my specialty.

I was the first person in our residency program in twenty years who failed both parts of their specialty boards the first time out. I was written off for dead, a person “who will never pass the boards”. I was encouraged to go into another specialty. I knew they were wrong. But I did not know who or what to believe. It drove me into a pit of despair and I did not answer my phone for six weeks, save being on call. I came incredibly close to killing myself—the only time I have ever ventured that far into that deep chasm. Loaded the shotgun and looked at it. Then I decided it wasn’t right to leave such a mess for everyone to clean up, and unloaded it and put it back down.

That is when I spent some time with the people who deal with learning disorders, and discovered that I was not someone with a “full blown” learning disorder, I was on the fence with it, and that the way everyone insisted I “had” to study in order to pass was the exact WRONG way for me to study. I learned I was a better at processing what I heard than what I read. I learned that in reading, to read all the headings and subheadings in a chapter first, and then outline below each in my notes, in my own words, then study the notes, not the book. I bought video versions of the board review lectures and outlined the notes on my computer as I watched the lectures. I practiced systematically going through each piece of tissue on my study slides under the microscope. I worked with the learning disorders staff on campus to do behavior modification techniques; although I was told that Ritalin might help me, I just did not want to do the Ritalin thing. I was afraid it would “dull me.” I have this strong sense that my creative skills emanate from this constantly zipping herd of thoughts in my brain and did not want to risk alienating myself from them.

When I took my boards the second time, not only did I pass, I tore the lid off of it. Although we were never “officially” given our scores, I got a phone call from one of the members of the board “on the sly” who told me, “Wow, you did REALLY well on the boards. Good job!”

Yet, I still did not “feel called.” I was a “jack of all trades” working in an academic setting where being an “expert” is more prized. I was told “well, you are an excellent teacher of medical students and residents, but no one ever gets promoted for being a good teacher.”

Something DID happen in those five years as a young attending, though, that told me “there is something about me worth salvaging.” We had a young resident, married and with two small children, who, mysteriously at age late 20something, had a stroke—a pretty good sized stroke. No one ever figured out WHY this happened. It left him in a position where it was questionable whether he would recover to the point he could finish his residency. When he came back on leave, it was very hard for him to “bounce back”--but he did, although it was a roller coaster ride. Additionally, he was pushed a lot to be “tested” to see if he could be “broken.” I remember one day he came into my office (he would bop in and out of my office some for encouragement now and then during this time) and he expressed his worry whether he could pass his boards.

I took a deep breath. I had not talked about my “failure experience” with any of my peers and former trainers. It was something I had put aside, like an affair or an illegitimate pregnancy, or a miscarriage—something that had happened, you didn’t talk about, you pretended did not happen. I took another deep breath—and then I started with, “Well, you know...I failed the boards—both parts—the first time. I learned something important from that. I learned that I did not learn the way everyone else did, that I was told bad advice, that the way ‘everyone did it’ was the wrong way for me. I had to learn to hear my own small still voice tell me how I had to learn it, in order to pass it. I had to get help from people who understand styles of learning. It turned out I was sort of on the fence for two learning disabilities I did not know I even had. Well, I am betting that part of how you have come back from your stroke was that you have continually had to deal with learning things a different way than you used to. My one piece of advice is listen to yourself on how to do this, and listen to the people who have helped you bounce back from this stroke, about how you learn, and decide now that these things will guide how you study. Hey, if you fail them, at least someone recently has been there before you and you won’t be by yourself.”

He passed.

It was not until I took my present position that I started to realize I was “called.” I work in a two person group in a small town, covering four hospitals. Three are “critical access” hospitals—hospitals in a rural area where it is challenging to keep a laboratory functioning. I realized being “jack of all trades” when most of your referring doctors are generalists—family medicine, internal medicine, general surgery, and OB/Gyns who do both obstetrics AND gynecology in equal amounts—need a general hospital pathologist to answer questions ranging from blood bank to surgical pathology to microbiology. The thing that was dissed in an academic setting was the perfect thing in this one. My job pays quite a bit less than the national average. But lifestyle is cheap here and I have more than I ever dreamed of having as a child, growing up with “not much.” There were few people who belonged in this setting...but one of the few was me.

Then another calling started to emerge. It was the call to be a part of a spiritual community. It took me several years to even darken a church door on a regular basis, but when I came to Trinity, I knew “this was the place.” I just sort of came in like a stray dog, turned around three times, and lay on the rug, looked up and said, “When do we eat?”

I discovered once again that being a practical “jack of all trades” was something our parish could use. I joke that I am the Jose Oquendo of the parish. (Cardinals fans recall that in the 80’s and early 90’s, Jose Oquendo was a utility infielder that, one year, was allowed to play every position on the diamond.) I joke that “I’ve done everything but pitched.”

Yet I still struggle with this half of my “calling.” Oddly enough, I am still very uncomfortable with a church “community.” I am sure it comes from being a lone wolf Christian, unchurched but studying all these years. I have had to deal in my spiritual life with every single doppelganger that hangs over from my personal life—my attention deficit and hyperactivity issues, my anger issues because of stuff from my past, and my feelings of inferiority from being an adult child of an alcoholic—the “even if you do everything, everything is never enough” stuff. These things are incredibly hard some days. A few days, I wonder if it is worth it. But I stick with it. I have a desire to watch these two callings in my life come together somehow, and a God-given stubborn nature. Yet another nature is emerging. I am not ready to give this nature a name. I am a 55% extrovert, 45% introvert. I don’t think I’ve fed my “inner introvert” much over the years. But I sense this new thing that is emerging comes from that 45% half. It is foreign and uncomfortable some days. VERY uncomfortable on a few days. I try sometimes to use my “listening skills” from the time I learned about my attention deficit problems to hear it. I will be the first to admit I have a fear of failure about it. I fear sometimes I will let my peers and my clergy down.

I don’t have a name for it—but I know it is a work in progress.