Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 33 seconds

And yet, I can’t help but to react strongly and physically to Scott’s comments about all those horrible “medical people.” As a former “medical people,” I feel hurt and summarily excluded from this dialogue, and go immediately to a place of thinking about all the times I made sacrifices for patients who didn’t even stop to recognize that they were sacrifices (I guess that’s part of what defines sacrifice, right?). I’ll spare you the actual examples.

I’ve monitored my own feelings to this discussion thread closely and, quite frankly, Maha and company, I don’t know what to say or do – and I would love some advice.

I think it’s funny that I am defending quantitative data, research designs, and now – somewhat oddly and randomly – medical people. It’s funny because I spend my days defending qualitative data, research designs, and advocating for change in medical education. So why the switch? Why do I find myself in the other position?

I am reminded of women in labor (for the record, I used to by a OB/GYN. I delivered over a thousand babies before I quit). Some women in labor (certainly not all…not even a majority) think it’s acceptable to hurt their doctor while laboring. I’ve been kicked, scratched, spit on, had my hair pulled, had every epithet – racial and otherwise – hurled at me by laboring women, and unless those women are keeping you from helping them (or they kick you in your own pregnant belly) you just take the abuse and try to get them pain relief, because those women are hurting, and hurting people tend to lash out.

Mezirow wrote that to have a dialogue, both parties have to be willing – at least conceptually – to change their position. They have to be able to listen.

When I read through some of this thread (not all), I hear a lot of hurt and frustration and anger too. I see a lot of big punches in the air (like those of the laboring women), with wild swings at numbers and quantitative research and statistics and randomized control studies and, jeez, now even “medical people who disallow my emotions…” as if all of these things are the same thing. This is a messy thread…which is part of the “figuring it all out,” I suppose, but it’s not a place of actually being able to hear what others with other viewpoints have to say. And it’s not a place of being able to convince others of your points. Heck, I’m even drawn to arguing for the “other side” but am feeling strange and out of place for doing it.

And so I don’t know what to do or say or if I’m even welcome in this conversation. Part of me just wants to walk away and ignore it all and everything that you are trying to say.