Eugene Smith, "Country Doctor" ("Country Doctor", 1948)Have you ever been in a situation where you discovered a new milestone in your professional life (for example, you got a dream job), but realized that you are sorely lacking in experience, and your position requires very concrete successful results? Yes, for me.
Already, the lazy one of all kinds of coaches and labor market experts did not blow that our generation had an extraordinary fate: soon a multiple change of activity in life would become the norm. They say that the world around is changing so quickly, and the technology in it is such a sure help that we will no longer sit at one job all our lives, we will have to adapt ourselves to the changing world all the time, which means we will have to constantly learn something new. And it seems that the same technologies make the learning process easier: you open a new browser tab, and thousands of online courses in all sorts of subjects are at your service.
And this is all true. And I will even say categorically: learning new activities and in general the process of comprehending the new is an obvious benefit.
But now imagine such a situation: you take online courses, read some textbooks, go to workshops, and at some point find yourself in a cherished position (changed jobs, got promoted or started your own business); you were able to convince other people of your suitability, turned out to be among professionals, and now you need to act ... and then your hands begin to tremble, your eyes and thoughts rush: you have no idea what to do exactly because of lack of experience. In other words, you are an upstart, and you understand that.
Many great people like to remember the beginning of their journey in the genre of anecdotes and tales prepared for meetings with students, but few people frankly talk about what he had to go through and what to do to those who will be in his place. Although, one person did it ... They were our great writer Mikhail Bulgakov, who graduated from the medical faculty shortly before the revolutions of 1917 and left to work on distribution as head physician to the village hospital, where he, a young university graduate, had to amputate his leg for the first time, cut a little girl has a throat, take delivery and fix a hernia; to struggle with self-doubt, to learn to cope with emotions, to win the authority of others and to work a lot. He frankly, cheerfully and cheerfully tells about all this in his “Notes of the Young Doctor”, which have become a true hymn to novice professionals.
Heard about the concept of 9 circles of hell by Dante? So, at Bulgakov such circles I counted 10, plus one bonus. In Dante, these circles are arranged according to the severity of sins, but I arranged them in an approximate chronological sequence in which the newcomers of their craft have to deal with them.
Go!
Eugene Smith, "Country Doctor" ("Country Doctor", 1948)Circle 1: A load of unnecessary information
I vaguely right there in the yard mentally leafed through the pages of textbooks, stupidly trying to remember whether it really exists, or it seemed to me in yesterday’s dream in Grabilovka village, a disease in which a person has ossified muscles? What is her name, damned, in Latin? ... My fingers could not grasp anything, and again I, filled with all sorts of knowledge from interesting medical books, remembered a disease - paralysis "Paralysis" - desperately in my mind and the devil knows why I said to myself.
The human brain is funny: when you read a ton of textbooks, it seems that every word will be imprinted on your head forever, but as soon as you begin to solve practical problems, everything starts to get confused, every unnecessary item pops up in your head, and you don’t know how to approach solving the problem, where to start. You seem to know everything - and at the same time you do not know anything.
Circle 2: Life has gone far beyond your knowledge
I managed to get around the hospital and with perfect clarity I was convinced that the instruments in it were the richest. At the same time, with the same clarity, I was forced to admit (to myself, of course) that I don’t know at all a great many brilliant, pristine instruments. I not only did not hold them in my hands, but even, frankly, I did not see them.
Eugene Smith, "Country Doctor" ("Country Doctor", 1948)I think 95% of graduates experienced something like this. The university is designed to give you the widest possible amount of theoretical information, which should serve as the foundation for practical experience. From my own experience, I can say that without this foundation (which, despite the abundance of opportunities for self-study, so far, you can get, alas, only at the university) to build a system of your knowledge oh, how difficult it is! But at that moment, when you start working, you have only one thought in your head: why were you tormented by the theory of industry markets, if you can't understand accounting?
Circle 3: Desperate attempt to fill the gaps in knowledge
Along the way, I read about the existence of some kind of “insipin”: it is none other than “quinindiglycolic acid ester sulfate” ... It turns out that quinine has no taste! But why him? And how to write it out? Is he a powder? Damn it!
The instinctive desire arising from the preceding paragraph is to fill in the gaps in knowledge as quickly as possible. Here all means are good: books, blogs, forums, friends. But the more you try to “swallow” information in the last minutes, the more you get confused. You skip “tops”, but it doesn’t settle in your head, because it is so simple that it (information) is not converted into knowledge (did not pass through your neurons many times, was not confirmed by practice, became a personal experience, which is remembered much better), and it remains a set of facts preparing to fly out of the other ear.
Circle 4: Legendary predecessor
“Um,” I moaned very meaningfully, “but you have a lovely toolbox.” Um ...
“Well, sir,” said Demian Lukich sweetly, “this is all through the efforts of your predecessor Leopold Leopoldovich.” After all, he operated from morning to evening.
Then I poured cold sweat and melancholy glanced at the shining mirror cabinets. So we walked around the empty chambers, and I was convinced that forty people could be accommodated in them freely.
“Leopold Leopoldovich sometimes had fifty lying,” Demyan Lukich consoled me.
We do not like being compared to other people. But compare - in human nature. Therefore, it remains only to hope that either you have no one to compare with you or your Leopold Leopoldovich was not so good after all.
Circle 5: Around - professionals. And you - no
I don’t know how she needs to help, because I have seen birth only twice in my life at the clinic, and those were completely normal. Now I am doing research, but this does not make it easier either for me or for the woman in labor; I absolutely do not understand anything and can not feel out there inside her.
And it's time to decide on something.
- The transverse position ... just the transverse position, which means that you need ... you need to do ...
“Turning on a leg,” Anna Nikolaevna could not restrain herself and seemed to notice.
The old, experienced doctor would have squinted at her for the fact that she is hustling forward with her conclusions ... I’m an imprudent man ... ..
“Yes,” I confirmed pointedly, “a twist on a leg.”
When you are self-confident, you are not very confused by the fact that you may not know something. And even the fact that others may know more does not upset you: each employee has his own experience, context and strengths, and the point of teamwork is precisely to combine the unique experience and knowledge of different professionals. But when you are not sure of yourself, then at such moments it seems to you that you were revealed - everyone understood that you do not know anything and are not good for anything ...
Circle 6: Confess?
In the operating room, I washed my hands bloody to my elbow.
- You, the doctor, probably did a lot of amputations? - Anna Nikolaevna suddenly asked. ...
“Hmm ... I ... I only did it twice, you see ..."
Why did I lie? Now I do not understand.
Dr. Bomgard (the main character of the book) has never done an amputation before. But the question of the number of operations for him at that moment was akin to the question of the number of relationships with women, which baffled many young men.
And how often did you lie at interviews and work, answering the question: “(how often) did you do this before?”. I think everyone at least once calmly and confidentially squeezed out: “I did it once, but it was a long time ago / I started / read / saw how others do” (select the necessary one).
Lap 7: You're an upstart. And you know it
In anguish and twilight, I walked around the office. When I caught up with the lamp, I saw how in the boundless darkness of the fields flashed my pale face next to the lights in the window.
“I look like a False Dmitry,” I thought suddenly stupidly, and again sat down at the table.
You settled not on some kind of junior, but on a serious position. At the interview, he voiced the salary that you offered rather from sports interest, having heard about the millions received by others in this field. And even by some miracle this salary was approved! But after completing the first 6 laps, you will certainly remember your greed, and you will be ashamed that you have so cleverly sold your insignificance.
Circle 8: In anticipation of the storm
Inside, I got all petrified, but I said it clearly: - Immediately sterilize the knife, scissors, hooks, probe!
A minute later, I ran across the courtyard, where, like a demon, a blizzard flew and shuffled, ran to myself and, counting the minutes, grabbed the book, leafed through it, found a drawing depicting a tracheotomy. Everything was clear and simple on it: the throat was open, the knife was thrust into the respiratory throat. I began to read the text, but did not understand anything, the words somehow jumped in my eyes. I have never seen a tracheotomy done. “Eh, now it's too late,” I thought, looked with melancholy at the blue color, at the bright pattern, felt that a difficult, terrible thing had fallen on me, and returned, without noticing the blizzard, to the hospital.
People, in principle, are often in anticipation of something bad. And very often it appears to us as a specific phenomenon. Dr. Bomgard was afraid to death that a patient with a hernia would be brought to him (especially he felt cold at the thought of “strangulated hernia”) or a woman in labor.
Imagining a concrete danger, we are trying to think of all possible solutions of the impending problem, which has not yet come, but the sword of Damocles. Of course, this is good - to come up with your answer in advance: to overlap with information, to prepare psychologically. I once heard that if a person often dreams of a nightmare, then if he encounters him in person, he will already know how to behave and what actions to avoid (“an interesting fact for optimist number 1”). But, as a rule, life is much more interesting and diverse than our assumptions, and you can be sure that something will happen that you didn’t expect and prepare for - and you don’t have time to prepare well, which means you have to improvise and rely on your taste (I can reassuring, is not it?).
Circle 9: When you put out the fire, but you only make it worse. And only a miracle saves you
It was very quiet in the operating room. I took a knife and held a vertical line on a puffy white throat. Not a single drop of blood was released. I spent the second time with a knife on a white strip, which came out between the resounded skin. No bloodshed again. Slowly, trying to remember some drawings in the atlases, I began to divide thin fabrics with the help of a blunt probe. And then at the bottom of the wound dark blood poured from somewhere and instantly poured the entire wound and flowed down the neck. The paramedic began to wipe her with tampons, but she did not let up. Remembering everything I saw at the university, I began to pinch the wound edges with tweezers, but nothing came of it. I felt cold, and my forehead was wet ... In angry despair, I thrust tweezers at random, somewhere near the wound, stuck it, and the blood immediately stopped flowing ... There was no breathing throat anywhere. My wound did not resemble any drawing. Two or three minutes had passed, during which I was mechanically and stupidly picking the wound with a knife or a probe, searching for my respiratory throat. And by the end of the second minute I was desperate to find him ... I raised the knife again and senselessly, deeply and sharply slashed Lidka. The fabrics parted, and suddenly my respiratory throat appeared in front of me.
You are in a hurry, trying hard to finish the job on time, but then one key is incorrectly pressed - and the entire database of the most valuable client is deleted, for which you have been responsible for integrating data from last week. Have you had something like this? One of my friends, whose name I will not name, this happened. The dismissal, the blacklisting, the need to relearn again (flew from a political analyst to an IT specialist, now have to do floristics, apparently) flew before his eyes - you can believe that the vision is not pleasant ... And it turned out that nothing he did not delete - the base just moved to another place. He wiped sweat and proudly continued to work. So he told me.
Lap 10: When the sea is knee-deep (spoiler: no)
The lamp was already burning, and I, floating in the bitter tobacco smoke, summed up. My heart was filled with pride. I did two hip amputations, but I don’t count fingers. And clean up. Here I have written eighteen times. A hernia. A tracheotomy. Did, and it turned out well. How many giant ulcers, I opened! And dressings for fractures. Gypsum and starch. Dislocations reset. Intubation Childbirth. Come with what you want. ... I, - I mumbled, falling asleep, - I don’t positively imagine that they would bring me a case that could put me into a dead end ...
As smart people say: if you think you know everything, then you are 17 years old. A characteristic feature of beginners and upstarts of all stripes: after the first successes, start thinking that you already learned and comprehended everything. And how can you not begin to think so when you have already begun to praise (“Well, you did an excellent job, doctor, an operation.“). You are already condescending to the mistakes of senior colleagues. But life is able to helpfully descend from heaven to earth. A woman came to Dr. Bomgard with a son who had a bubble instead of an eye. The doctor did not think long and self-confidently diagnosed: the brains got out. I wanted to cut it - the woman refused and left. A few days later she returned: the son is well, his eyes are in place; it turned out - just a purulent bladder. The young doctor, being quite self-critical and trained, came to a wise conclusion: “
No. Never, even falling asleep, I will not proudly mumble that I was not surprised. Not. And a year has passed, another year will pass and it will be as rich in surprises as the first ... It means that you need to study meekly. "
Eugene Smith, "Country Doctor" ("Country Doctor", 1948)Circle 11 (bonus): When you are young, and it is noticeable
Heading into the Muryev wilderness, I remember, still in Moscow, I gave myself the word to keep myself solid. My youthful appearance poisoned my existence in the first steps. Everyone had to introduce themselves:
- Doctor such and such.
And everyone necessarily raised eyebrows and asked:
- Really? And I thought you were still a student.
“No, I finished it,” I replied gloomily and thought “I need glasses, that's what.” But the glasses were not good for anything, my eyes were healthy, and their clarity was not overshadowed by everyday experience. Not being able to defend oneself from the usual indulgent and tender smiles with the help of glasses, I tried to work out a special, awe-inspiring, habit. He tried to talk in a measured and weighty manner, wherever possible, holding impulsive movements, not running, like people running at twenty-three years of age who graduated from a university, but walking. It turned out all this, as now, after many years, I understand, very badly.
This is a special circle, not open to all. There are always years in a person's life when it is more pleasant to look older than his years, and this is more advantageous: interlocutors take you seriously and do not subconsciously challenge your competence. Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky, and the young, fresh face of many gives "with giblets." The case could be saved by the “correct” habits, but body language is a delicate matter, they need to be able to control, and for this, according to all the laws of the “damn wheel”, experience is needed. Dr. Bomgard stopped the complexes about his age only when he began to take 110 patients a day, and he no longer had enough time to even shave the second half of his face.
What to do?
Of course, you want to know how to live with all this? Some answers give all the same "Notes", they need only be read correctly.
I know from childhood: when it's hard - go to sleep, “the morning of the evening is wiser”. As the inner voice of Dr. Bomgard prompted: “
In the morning we will see. You will master ... sleep ... Drop the atlas ... Anyway, now you can’t figure out a dog . " In other words, calm down and start working. It is easy to say: “calm down” - by the way, is this first advice for all occasions not annoying you?
I will say in other words: you have to accept it. Just accept the fact that you will make mistakes. Stupid mistakes. You will get into awkward situations. If you are programming, for example, then you will write the so-called “govnokod”, and you can’t do anything about it. The main thing is that you are curious and hard work ahead.
Although at first you can indulge yourself with the thought that, they say, nothing, you will do simple tasks and their decisions and write out “useful but easy recipes” for patients like soda (it reminds me, as I left my paternal home, for the first two days I seriously thought that I will eat mussels, because I did not know how to cook), in fact, you yourself will want to grow, to perform more complex tasks and to do it better and more efficiently. And the only opportunity to begin to correspond to the position and the expectations connected with it is to study hard.
Bomgard “sat every evening in the same position, filled with tea: under my left hand I had all the manuals on operative obstetrics ... And on the right there are ten different volumes on operative surgery, with drawings. I groaned, smoked, drank black iced tea ... ". But to learn means not only to read. It also means asking the right questions. Ask a lot of them, often, ask stupid questions - the main thing is that you find the answers to them. Of course, you also need to think a lot yourself, “digest” all the information. Look around, carefully listen to colleagues and bosses, trying to find out all the information you need, and be sure to write down everything you hear, and especially the answers to your questions. On this account, another quote from the "Notes":
Anna Nikolaevna, under the moans and screams of the "mother in labor", told me how my predecessor, an experienced surgeon, made turns. I eagerly listened to her, trying not to utter a word. And these ten minutes gave me more than everything that I read in obstetrics for state exams, which I received in “very” for obstetrics. From fragmentary words, unfinished phrases, in passing abandoned hints, I learned that most necessary, which is not in any books.
If you understand that the level of your position does not match your knowledge, do not run to give up with your bare hands. Never lie, starting with interviews, about what you can do, but do not underestimate your experience, whatever it may be, and your potential - let everyone know that you are ready and want to learn and work a lot! And slowly increase your expertise, become indispensable.
Eugene Smith, "Country Doctor" ("Country Doctor", 1948)Call for help. Do not be afraid to demonstrate that you need the help of your colleagues, get in their person trustees and advisers, and if possible call for the help of friends.
Realistically evaluate the time you need to complete the task. Yes, you may need (much) more time than a true professional. Yes, this minute - when you say that instead of a week you need three, you will look like a real, good, reference sucker. But believe me: it is better to warn you that you will need more time (it is quite possible that you will manage to quickly) than to say that this is a “frivolous matter”, and in the end bring your company to a client.
And finally - treat everything with a healthy sense of humor. After all, in the end, from all this you will ever be able to compose quite a good jokes. As Dr. Womgard wisely remarked years later: “
It has long been noted by smart people that happiness is like health: when it is there, you don’t notice it. But when the years pass, how do you remember about happiness, about how you remember! ". He was really happy that winter, when he, a new graduate, came to work as the head doctor in one village hospital.