The world is in turmoil right now, and no one feels more affected than physician families.
It seems that every day the news offers us more things to worry about.
One of the most unnerving parts of this global pandemic for those married to doctors is simply not knowing what is going to happen next.
Will my husband get sick while helping care for those who are already ill?
Will he pass it on to me and our children? (Are you worried about your child’s emotional health? This free NO PREP slide show will teach them how to handle ANY emotion).
Will he be asked to do something that is out of his scope of practice?
What is going to happen to the economy?
Will we run out of Clorox wipes?
Sometimes we would rather hear the worst news than no news at all.
But I want to remind you that this isn’t your first rodeo with uncertainty.
Match day, anyone?
If that whole process isn’t oozing with uncertainty, I don’t know what is.
When my husband was preparing for match day back in 2011, there were more residents than there were residency programs, which meant that some of his peers would end up with no residency program at all. You all know what that would mean– they could graduate and become a doctor, but wouldn’t be able to practice because of a lack of residency training. It was a daunting prospect.
I remember conversation after conversation with my husband about where we would rank which program and what the likelihood would be that we’d end up in Wisconsin or Utah or somewhere else. I was consumed with worry about WHERE me and my family would end up spending the next 3 years of our lives.
Would he be accepted to a program he loved?
Would he get the training he needed to secure a good job once residency was over?
Would we be able to afford to live as a family of 5 in our new town?
Would we be happy there?
So many “what ifs” hung in the balance, and I found myself unable to think beyond match day, worried about all the unknowns.
The only solace I found seemed to be the temporary relief of graham crackers dipped in a homemade concoction of melted chocolate chips and peanut butter.
Let’s fast forward to today.
There are different questions that we are all asking, but the uncertainty is the constant.
Will my husband get sick while helping care for those who already are?
Will he pass it on to me and our children?
What is going to happen to the economy?
Will we run out of Clorox wipes?
I know you want answers. I know you want to feel secure. What if you could feel secure during this time of uncertainty?
Not because I can give you all of the answers to exactly what is going to happen over the next week, month, or year in regard to COVID-19, but because certainty lies in believing that you can handle ANYTHING that comes your way.
On the morning of Match day in 2011, we learned that my husband scrambled.
No match.
I remember my stomach dropping to the floor when he read the news out loud. It took my breath away. ‘We might be one of the ones who doesn’t get a job..’ I thought.
I was paralyzed for what felt like an eternity, but was probably less than a minute.
And then you know what happened next?
We immediately got to work. My husband started calling programs who also didn’t match and sent out more than a dozen emails to professors and colleagues and anyone he could to let them know he was looking for a good residency program.
By the end of the day he had secured himself a spot with one of the more prestigious programs in his field. A program that we never even considered before match day because it was thousands of miles from our closest family members. A program we never thought of because it was far away on the East Coast.
This program wasn’t even on our radar, so we never saw it as an opportunity until it seemed like all other opportunities vanished.
Could this be possible with a pandemic, too? What if there could be opportunity in this crisis? Opportunity that we simply haven’t been able to see before now. Before coming face to face with it.
Your brain can’t solve a hypothetical problem that hasn’t even happened yet.
But it CAN get to work on a problem that is right in front of you.
I don’t know what will happen with our world over the next few weeks, months, or even years. But I do know that YOU are a master at handling uncertainty.
You handled it when your husband was applying to medical school.
You handled it in the months leading up to match day.
You handled it FOR YEARS when you didn’t ever know if/when your husband was coming home from the hospital.
Let’s face it, you probably still don’t ever really know when he’s going to be home from day to day, do you? The job of a physician isn’t one that you ever really “clock out” from, right? (Need some fun ideas to pass the time when your husband is on-call? Click here for 50 Fun Ideas for when he’s working long hours)
But you know what?
You’ve been prepared for this.
No one has been prepared quite like the families of physicians for this time of uncertainty.
And you’re going to get through this.
You’re going to figure it out.
Of that I am certain.
Podcast listener? Check out more on this topic at The Doctor’s Wife Podcast on Itunes.
