What plot?

You are more likely to cause harm from the things you don't see rather than the things you don't know.

Okay, okay... I'll be the first to admit that I've lost the plot a little lately.

With all the stress that's been going on with internship results (no, I haven't found out yet), I've been doubting myself a little more and questioning my suitability in medicine, which is not something that commonly occurs.

Socrates once claimed that the one thing he knew was that he knew nothing. And really, if Socrates knows nothing, then who am I to presume that I know anything at all?

At the end of the day, I do my best to get by with what I know and to learn as much as I can. As far as I'm concerned, that's my job. Counterintuitively though, it seems like the more I learn and experience, the more I realise just how much I don't know. It's like swimming into the ocean, realising just how enormous it is and seeing no end to the vastness. You get lost in it.

Truth be told, there seems to be no end to self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy, particularly in an intensely demanding field such as medicine. There's just so much cause and opportunity for it that if you let yourself, you could pretty much go on forever. Ironically though, it is precisely in these demanding fields that you cannot afford to doubt yourself.

There is no room for self-doubt in medicine because medicine itself is already so full of uncertainty. Your job is to do the work and get it done right or the patient loses and therefore, you lose.

People say that you're allowed to be human, but in actual fact, you're not. The price is too high and most of us are not willing to pay it. And so we push ourselves and hope against hope that if we do eventually break, it's not going to be today. We'll worry about tomorrow when it comes.

People say that perfect practice makes perfect, but you know what? I still feel horrible performing procedures on patients when I know that a more highly skilled practitioner is standing right beside me, able to give the patient a much better experience with the process than I ever could, simply because I lack the skills due to not having had enough practice.

It's a Catch-22. And there is nothing that any of us can do about it.

After all, students need to learn and the only way to learn is through practice.

What I've discovered though is that practicing without confidence increases the likelihood of you getting it wrong and thus, constitutes as a wasted opportunity that wastes everyone's time, including the patient's.

So in the end, it's not just a matter of doing. It's about ditching the negativity at the door, preping yourself mind, body and soul, going through the process in your head, faking the confidence and making yourself believe that you've got it down because you are in fact your own worst enemy.

Getting through that mental hurdle seems to be a lot harder than identifying that it's there, but you know what? There's only one way out and I can't back out now.

I'm stepping out of my own way and getting back to work.