“Change is inevitable, misery is optional”
I don’t know who said this, but I get it. Benjamin Franklin famously said “in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes” but I would add change to this short list. I am in my 36th year since graduation as a doctor and I have seen so much change - I am change weary and change wary
And yet still the change comes, with no regard for how I feel about it
Usually I greet change with open arms, recognising the inevitability of it and both joyful and eager to see what the next part of forever looks like. The COVID-19 mandated changes however have sucked some of the joy from me. There have been too many changes imposed upon us by people who think they know what it is we (General Practitioners/health care workers) do, without having actually done the work themselves. On a bad day, it feels like they are trying to burn my profession to the ground, destroying all that I hold dear, with no regard for the good work being done in many, many corners of my world
But today is not a bad day, and I wish to share with you some lessons I have learned from nature. Before COVID (there was a time before COVID!) Australia experienced floods that put out the fires that followed the drought. The bushfires were particularly brutal in the Blue Mountains and it was only a few weeks after the fires had been put out that I visited, taking the photographs from which I draw the following lessons
Lesson 1
Lesson 2
Lesson 3
Lesson 4
Lesson 5
My final lesson comes not from the bushfire ravaged Blue Mountains in NSW, Australia, but from the superb Kenrokuen Garden in Kanazawa, Japan
So, I cannot see the future. I do not know what will or won’t survive. I believe with every fibre of my being that relationship based care is better than transactional care and while Dr Google is democratising health information, which is a good thing, we still need well trained clinicians to help guide us along our health journeys. The passion and talent of the next generation of medical leadership both inspires and fills me with confidence that, whatever the future brings, we are in good hands