As someone who works in healthcare, I recognize the importance of self-confidence. If you go to a specialist you expect them, as an expert in their field, to know what is best. It doesn’t instill confidence in anyone if providers are nervous, confused, or easily flustered. 

People expect our doctors, nurses, and dietitians to know everything within their scope of practice and more. And why shouldn’t they? For the price people pay for health care or the price of a one-night hospital stay, they better know what they are doing! We expect perfection and we don’t allow for human error. The unfortunate thing is, this doesn’t allow for providers to second-guess themselves. If no one is allowed to say “we were wrong” because they are afraid of consequences, then they are never able to make it right. 

Patients want the surgeon who isn’t afraid to cut, the nurse who places an IV on the first try, and a dietitian who will tell them exactly what diet is perfect. While each patient may have a different healthcare path, they all want their doctor to be confident in the treatment and confident in the cure. 

So yes… self-confidence is great, but self-awareness is better.

Self-awareness is recognizing that there is always more to learn and to understand. It is the ability to see past our own pride and open our minds to how we may improve. Within healthcare, it is the understanding that there is a vast landscape of research and information that one single person is unlikely to fully master own their own. 

I have conversations with people on a daily basis about the latest diet and the most current nutrition science. I know the same conversations happen with medicine and the newest pharmaceutical studies. I think that people get concerned with how fast the field can change – how fast one cure can come and go before we a study on a new cure with better results. I think that this scares people. Maybe they are worried their providers aren’t keeping up with the latest study or maybe they feel if they wait long enough something better will come along. 

It may scare people, but I think it’s beautiful. We have a never-ending search for the best care. We are performing studies that are more sophisticated and more accurate than ever before to provide the best care possible. We have the ability to question what we are doing. We have the ability to learn something new all the time. 

How do we practice self-awareness? We have to remember that we are not all-knowing. We have to question the care we provide so that we can always be better. Yes, we must be confident in our methods, but we have to question each patient’s personal experience before we dish out another cookie-cutter solution. 

As providers we must be aware that to give the best, we have to understand the best and the best is constantly changing. As patients we have to be just that, patient. We have to understand that our providers learn new information every day, about us and our condition and about science that could change our prognosis forever. We have to know that our providers only want to give us the best care and that as they treat us, this may change. 

We are all human. It may be easier to think we know it all, but it’s more important to ask questions so that we are always improving.