"Normal in Medicine
By: Anonymous
One thing that I resonate deeply with is the notion of defining “normal”. Whether in clinical practice, where lab results are defined by healthcare workers as WNL or “within normal limits”, or in academia, where I am asked if I am a “normal student” or if I have accommodations.
In both senses, I have always wondered if there could ever be hard cut-offs. My heart rate, although often within 60-100bpm, is nearly always in 80s and 90s bpm. To me, having a resting heart rate suddenly recorded in the low 60s would not be “normal” despite being within certain limits.
In academia, I have been a recipient of many backhanded compliments and strange comments due to my documented disabilities which provide me accommodations. Even now, after going through my undergraduate career at UConn before medical school, I still don’t know how to respond in situations where I am questioned on why I require accommodations and “what could possibly be wrong” with me. The term “normal” in nearly every social, clinical, and academic setting means nothing at all, because it is incredibly subjective to each person trying to define it.
My “normal” is living with multiple chronic conditions that do not define my abilities in medicine but still influence what is easier or harder to do. But I am not unique; it is “normal” for each student to have different strengths and weaknesses, different interests, different driving forces, etc. What frustrates me is other people trying to decide for me if my accommodations make me too “abnormal”, especially those who might only know me from my medical school application, or my emails with Disability Service Providers through the university. Most people don’t bother trying to gain actual information about me before labeling me as “abnormal”, and many people who do try to end up being ableist in their own actions.
I think it will stick with me for the rest of my life that within my first three days of medical school, I was told that medical school would essentially be a good testing ground for me to see if I would even be capable of keeping up and managing my necessary responsibilities that would eventually grow as a physician. Of course, I hope the faculty who said this had the purest of intentions. But as a student who worked equally, if not harder by overcoming additional obstacles, to earn my seat at the institution, I felt very invalidated. As if these expectations of working physically in clinic or labs was not something I already worked through in my Molecular and Cell biology degree and my job working as a medical assistant. As if I couldn’t handle the workload of academia after finishing my undergraduate degree in three years magna cum laude. I had proven more than capable already and was still questioned as a blanket statement without this individual knowing my background at all. My accommodations for my disabilities had labeled me for this person before I could make my own impression.
I think these feelings are very common in the world I live in and that many of my future patients live in as well. Because of my lived experiences, and especially with “hidden illness”, I feel it will be my role to validate and advocate for myself and my patients to protect us all from deeply rooted societal ableism.
Comments