The Countdown

The countdown continues as I face only 14 more work days before my full-time employment ends. As I connect with patients and inform them that I am leaving the practice, the reality of the change sets in. I also realize that some of my patients' lives will indeed change radically as they negotiate new clinical relationships that may or may not serve them as well as their relationship with me has done.

In terms of what I have done for patients, frequently going the extra mile---both literally and figuratively---I wonder if my going that extra mile has truly served them well. Having done so, their expectations may be that subsequent clinicians will do what I have done for them, and in this assumption they may indeed be sorely mistaken. If that is the case, did my going that extra mile only foster dependence and disempower them from a more proactive approach to their own care?

Enabling behavior among clinicians does occur, and in my (current) line of work---care coordination for the disabled and vulnerable---we are all guilty. However, if enabling does go so far as to disempower, then what has truly been served, the patient's needs or the clinician's own guilt?

For myself, this is the end of an era. It is the end of being in long-term therapeutic relationship with patients. It is the end of being a fixture in patients' lives year after year, through births, deaths, tragedies, and the inescapable comedies of error. It is the end of that feeling of responsibility of carrying the details of the care of so many on my own shoulders. I have gained much from that responsibility, and it has certainly fed my own need to be so needed. But is being so needed really all that it's cracked up to be?

As for my patients, they will survive, and they will navigate the new world without my presence however they can. Some will latch onto a new provider, some will simply fade into the healthcare woodwork. Abandonment issues will surface for some, and the more functional of these individuals will work through those issues and come out on the other side. For a few, I will just be one more well-meaning and earnest clinician who danced in their life for a while before spinning out of orbit like so many others before me.

In one exchange with a patient to whom I was breaking the news of my imminent departure, my patient said something about the fact that we had "done so much good work together" as if it was now all lost. My response was to counter that statement by framing it in the light of forward movement, of her new ability to build upon that foundation and realize more of her innate potential for self-directed advocacy. She agreed, but maintained her assertion that it was a loss of large proportions.

That day of finally closing the door on my seven-year sojourn---January 18th---is close on the horizon. What happens between now and then is only one part of the story. After that, a new chapter begins, and I will write that chapter with great interest and care. Perhaps it is already written and I only need to find it within myself.....