What is it like to learn again?
I just finished my visit in Taiwan as a visiting scholar. This means that for the last month, I was a learner again. The patients weren’t my patients. Their treatment decisions weren’t my treatment decisions. Heck, the consultations were in Mandarin, and I don’t speak Mandarin. This is the second time I’ve gone back to be a learner. The first time was last year for a month. This year I’ll have four months in total.
Finishing my training and coming out to work was a great experience. But being a learner again, I see the entire experience differently. My questions are different after going through my own challenges, seeing my own fears and weaknesses. I see problems in a different way. I see responsibility in a different way. It’s refreshing to let go of the responsibility of being the primary surgeon and allow myself the privilege of just seeing the mechanics and the planning and someone else’s process. Sometimes I see myself in it; and other times, I see what I want to be.
This is totally different than being a learner the first time — from before I had to put myself on the line for my patients. Everything looks different. The first time around, every day contained a million different new things. It felt like the proverbial trying to sip from the firehose. Every day was about keeping your head above water and not getting overwhelmed. This time, after a few years in practice, the rote stuff is just that: rote. I was able to see differently because I was able to not get distracted by the small stuff; and after a few years in practice, I knew better which areas that I found myself struggling with, as opposed when I was a resident, which was…well, everything.
If you’ve been in practice/business for a while, when’s the last time you were actually a learner? I’m not talking about taking a course, but a true immersed learner?
How do you think it might change you?
What do you think you might learn that you didn’t or couldn’t learn the first time around?
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