Impact

 It has been about 3+ almost 4 years since I joined healthcare. I still remember when I went for my first interview they asked me why did I want to join healthcare. Unlike many who will always say because they have grandparents who are ill, or they interact alot with their grandparents or take care of them hence they are really experiences and enjoy improving health of elderlies, I didnt. Not because i dont, but because ever since i know how to talk i probably have never spoken to my grandparents because either they had passed on or they had a stoke. I dont know what it is like to talk to elderly nor do i know what it is like to have non compliant grandparents who disobey your health advice. All i know was, i wanted to help people. So thats what i said. They probably didnt want me because they felt this person walao degree not so relevant then give this kind of lame ans. I made this inference because after that when i ask around usually they get back about 2 days, but mine took a week. I am not sure what made them decided to give me a chance, but i am really glad that they did. In fact, i think i am really lucky to be able to join an industry that i really liked since young for the first job that i found after graduation. Plenty of people had to make do with what they find cos jobs are hard to come by even with a degree. Not to say jobs that you really wanted.

So all of you will think wah happy ending, find a job i like and live happily ever after. Seriously, i was real disappointed after i joined. Since young i have this image that joining healthcare, help people, make a significant change to their life, people are grateful to you and you live happy everyday knowing you helped. Truth is, after i joined i realise it is actually way too hard to make a significant difference to people life. While you can offer your professional point of view, not many are compliant. In fact, not many actually needed to hear your professional advice. I am not a very healthy person. I dont choose the right food everyday, i dont exercise everyday. After a while while repeating all these 'health advice' day to day, it felt abit repetitive and i no longer have the passion of helping people as i had initially. The patients may appreciate your two cents of thoughts but how many of them actually did action on it. In that short 15 20min, it is almost impossible to make any significant changes to their lifestyle or chronic diseases. It is totally opposite of what i envisioned and i started to question are the things i am doing really worth doing. The patients will still survive perfectly without my these few piece of advices.

Fast forward i 混 a few years and moved on to backend work instead of patient fronting work. i do enjoy backend work and in fact i actually felt i contributed more to the healthcare than when i was doing patient fronting work. While doing backend work, i still do help to run weight loss program outside of working hours. Basically we motivate patients on their weight loss journey, offer them a source of support and information. This is my 3rd run for the program but the first time when i realised something new. All along since i joined healthcare, i always thought i am the profession. I have to to pretend like i got my act tog, like when i advise people to exercise more i do have to act like i exercised alot for them to believe me. I always offer them advice from the professional point of view. And that is the reason why i felt it was repetitive. Because patients cant relate to me and i cant relate to them. This is also the problem when previously i was doing patient fronting work. While we always say we do practice empathy,  how sincere are our empathy really? If you are not putting yourself in the shoes of the patients or participants, you cant feel their difficulties. And trust me, they know. 

I used to think if i admit that actually i am not healthy too, they will think walao you healthcare also not healthy not to say us. (and i legit got patients tell me eh you think dr healthy meh, they also do this do that which add on to my phobia omg). Today i realised though, the key actually is to try. Its not able am i healthy anot, are you healthy anot, but are we trying anot. How much efforts are we putting in to try. So today i admitted to my participants that my comfort food or rather drink when i am stress is coke. omg my love for coke cannot be put in words sia. (okay lah i didnt say this but i did say when i am unhappy or stress drinking coke will make me feel happy). But the thing is that sometimes when i want to drink, i will think twice am i really that sad to drink, and if i do foresee myself to be even more sian the next day then i will think okay i wait tmr drink. After sharing, the response was way better than i imagined. The participants reacted very positively and were enthu about their stress management and how to improve. Why? not because we are all self motivated people, but simple because we are all humans. They felt willing to share because we the coaches are not in a way 'perfect' to them. We do have our indulgence and not healthy side. But the same as them, we are trying.

It took me 3 years to really see and feel this. Quite a slow learner uh. But i hope for whoever is reading this, sometimes when we feel we are at a plateau, there is always ways to break through. While i felt that i was doing my best when i started the job, the better me felt i wasnt doing it right 3 years ago. that was what cause me to feel that i wasnt helping. i wasnt living my purpose of entering healthcare. The thing is I just wasnt being truthful to myself nor my patients and participants. I wasnt me. If only we all tried to be a friend to them, not as a pro atas professional, just as a friend, then perhaps we may be making more impact than we thought we had.