It’s a topic that’s emphasized a lot at Penn, which I love. Right now I get to work with a phenomenal, brilliant attending who truly seems to have it all. She’s even a great model of compromise, taking a year off med school to have her first child, purposely choosing a supposedly less time-consuming field and opting not to do a competitive fellowship in order to spend more time with family and loved ones.
Yesterday she told me that she hasn’t seen her children since Monday morning, and that they feel more comfortable going to the nanny with their problems than to her. When I said that I felt like I was sucking as a spouse, she commiserated: “Yeah, I’m sucking as a spouse, a mother, and a physician.”
Oy. Guess this feeling of complete inadequacy never goes away, does it?
anna in med school 
As a wife, parent and doc, we face wide distributions of behavior – rectangular distributions
I doubt if any of you suck at any of those, but it is important not to be in the left side of the distribution. The problem is that the public can only measure one of those. And if you really excel, you win a Nobel. The tease is that some of your peers actually do that
Life is simple. Compare yourself not to the Almighty, but to reason ability.
that was a sweet philosophical discussion–so happy you shared in here! thanks so much for your support…i think i’m becoming more comfortable with the fact that i never plan to win a nobel. love you!