Talk about being wrong

On one of my drives home last week, Dr. Brian Goldman was on CBC’s “Up to Speed” talking about his keynote address called “Let’s Talk Failure” at the "Fail Forward" conference (I’m sorry I can’t seem to find the interview on-line).  During this interview Dr. Goldman referenced his TED Talk called Doctor’s Make Mistakes. Can we talk about that?  ( I have since checked it out and would recommend it).

Although the focus of the TED Talk was on “medicine’s culture of denial” that keeps doctors from talking about their mistakes, I could see the link with other health professions. 

It got me thinking about some of the mistakes I’ve made in my practice.  While I realize that my mistakes haven’t had “life or death” consequences, my mistakes are ones that I hope wouldn’t happen again.  And when you expand the word “mistakes” to “things that I should have done better”, or “things I’m not proud of”, or “I should have known better” the list gets even longer.

What stood out to me most was a tip Dr. Goldman was sharing with physicians (which I think can be applied to you):

TALK ABOUT BEING WRONG. 

And for those of us who have practiced for a while--don’t just talk about the mistakes you made when you first got into practice.  Talk about the recent mistakes.  Mistakes don’t just happen to us in the first few years of practice.  They can happen at any time.

Talk about where you think you went wrong.  

Talk about what you learned.  

Talk about how this has changed what you do.

I think a few things might happen:

• You will help create a safe learning environment for the student.  You expect that mistakes will be made.  Mistakes that you can talk about and learn from. 

• You will alleviate the pressure the student might feel to have “the right answer” or to be “perfect”.  Even though you are an educator in a mentoring/coaching role you are still seen as the evaluator.
• You might be able to prevent a future mistake.  Perhaps your student can learn from your mistake too.

Around the 17 minute mark, Dr.Goldman says (the bolding is mine):

The redefined physician is human, knows she's human, accepts it, isn't proud of making mistakes, but strives to learn one thing from what happened that she can teach to somebody else. She shares her experience with others. She's supportive when other people talk about their mistakes. And she points out other people's mistakes, not in a gotcha way, but in a loving, supportive way so that everybody can benefit.

We are human.  We make mistakes.  But we can choose to learn from these mistakes.  And we can share this learning with others.

Lisa