Month: March 2016

Contemplation in Action: Reflective Habits in Clinical Care

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By Karen Spear-Ellinwood

I began professional life as a lawyer, representing people accused of violent crimes, most having failed to graduate high school, if they made it there at all. I realized that while a lack of education accounted for a great deal of crime, the more dangerous affliction was a failure to reflect before acting.

After 13 years, I became an educator. I started in middle school. I constructed debates on history, legal and social issues, on weighing the potential harm of perceived ills and their perceived remedies. The sorts of subjects that forced reflection and self-awareness.

I told my eighth graders that lawyers never make decisions without reflecting on what’s likely to happen and what might happen. Lawyers had to know the law and they had to figure out how to apply it, sometimes while encountering unanticipated circumstances. I assigned these eighth graders to argue the side of the debate with which they vehemently disagreed. They had to stretch their perspective, I told them. See this issue from someone else’s perspective to reconsider their own position. They might not change their mind but they would understand the issue and themselves better…

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Becoming Zusha: Reflecting on Potential in Medical Education and Practice

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By Hedy Wald

Reb Zusha* used to say: “When I die and come before the heavenly court, if they ask me, ‘Zusha, why were you not Abraham?’ I’ll say that I didn’t have Abraham’s intellectual abilities. If they say, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I’ll say I didn’t have Moses’ leadership abilities. For every such question, I’ll have an answer. But if they say, ‘Zusha, why were you not Zusha?’ for that, I’ll have no answer.”   

*Rabbi Meshulam Zusha of Hanipol (Anipoli), pious great Hassidic Rabbi (1718-1800)

What is our answer when faced with the challenge of helping our “Zushas,” our learners and educators, be all the “Zushas” they can be?

Developing a “reflective culture” within medical schools and teaching hospitals can encourage and guide learners, educators, and practitioners to recognize and take steps toward realizing untapped potential in self and in health care teams. Within a longitudinal, developmental reflective process starting in year one of medical school, extending into residency  and beyond,1 reflection-fostered awareness of self, other, and situation facilitates purposeful, self-directed learning, more effective use of feedback, and development of new habits of mind, heart, and practice.2  Meaning is created from experience and newly illuminated capabilities may be actualized…

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