A Mile In Her Shoes: The Importance of Empathy

Let me tell you a story about the importance of empathy, ie lived experience, when giving another person advice or criticism of their performance.

As I’ve written about before, I had my first baby in the fall of my fourth-year residency and then took maternity leave, as one does. The following summer, I was back at work at the hospital during the transitional period when the fourth-year residents leave and the new interns begin. Hospitals are usually short-staffed during this time, and ours was no exception.

Because it was such a busy summer, and because I had “taken time off” (ie maternity leave since I had just grown, given birth to, and wanted to care for my tiny human being), it was expected that I would take all the hardest rotations and give extra time. I “owed” everyone else that. Because of these expectations, by the time I graduated, I had taken more time on oncology and night shifts than anyone else in my class.

A Talk From the Boss

My rotation that summer was on labor and delivery, the busiest rotation at a very busy hospital, lucky me. My baby was about 9 months old, so I was still breastfeeding her at home and pumping at work. One of my co-residents, childless, told that she had informed our boss, the attending doctor, that I was not being “a good leader.” As the fourth-year student, mine was considered a more senior role. She said, “I just want you to know that you’re in for a talking-to. Don’t be mad!”

The next day, sure enough, the attending pulled me aside. He was a well-respected doctor in maternal/fetal medicine. He also was not married and did not have children. In his vision of a fatherly way, he told me, “I know you can do better, and I don’t think you’re living up to your potential as a doctor. You need to try harder.” Additionally, I was taking too much time to pump. Maybe I should see a lactation consultant?

The View From My Shoes

I had been breastfeeding for nearly 10 months at that point; I was also still non-confrontational. Looking back on it, I don’t think I was able to fully access my anger. If I had been, I would’ve been filled with rage.

How dare he comment on how I was caring for my baby? And how dare the other resident call me out on pumping to him? Neither of them had A CLUE how much energy and stamina it takes to work and breastfeed at the same time, let alone work 80-hour shifts and pump behind curtains in between other people’s deliveries.

As usual, I was trying to check all the boxes, as I do: trying to be the best doctor I can be, by working the busiest departments and night shifts because I felt I owed it to them. Trying to be the best mom possible, which I read as producing the most milk possible, since I was physically gone from my baby most of the time working at the hospital. Pumping milk was the contribution I felt I could make for my child, and I was going to do it well. (Side note: Aside from being rapidly soul-crushing, a schedule like this is not really conducive to being relaxed enough to help a mom’s milk supply.)

A Turning Point

I was so hurt—devastated really-- by his words. I thought, “I suck at all of it. I suck at feeding my baby, and now that’s affecting my work, and everyone thinks I’m a bad doctor.” It comes as no surprise that a few months later, I decided to walk out of my job.

Fortunately, I didn’t get that far. As I was in the act of leaving the building, I sought out someone to tell about it and found another colleague. (She’s now the program director at that hospital). We had a conversation about how miserable I was in a closet, of all places, where she diagnosed me with postpartum depression.

And when she did that, she also validated my experience, which kept me in the game and kept me from abandoning medicine forever. You know why? Because SHE had kids. She knew what it was like. She had real empathy. She had walked in my shoes, and she knew what a hard road it was. She also had clinical experience of seeing other women with postpartum depression, which made it easier for her to identify that to me.

Stand in Her Shoes First

So the mini-moral of my story today is two-fold. One: You can listen to bad advice, but you don’t have to follow it or respect it, especially if it’s given without any first-hand knowledge of your situation. Two: Until you’ve walked a mile in someone else’s shoes, don’t be so quick to judge the speed or the agility with which they’re walking the path. You may have absolutely no clue what it’s taken for them to get as far as they have.