We Are The Thorsons: Gavin

Today was another amazing day {I know, I know. I say most things here are amazing but seriously, they are.} I was a bit hesitant about the day today. I woke up tired and not very motivated. After packing a lunch and leaving the house late, the six of us jumped into K'hol and headed for Gavin's house. Gavin is an older gentleman who teaches meditation. He invited us into his home which was on the most beautiful piece of property. He is the only one that lives on 2000+ acres of an organic macadamia nut tree farm. His house was small, but accommodated us all. It was quiet and you could see the ocean in the distance from the living room. I was tired and the first thing we did was meditate. I tend to fall asleep during meditation sometimes if I'm really tired, but as I was focusing on my breath, I actually felt a little rejuvenated.

After meditation, Gavin facilitated a discussion in regards to owning our emotions. He shared with us some difficult times he has had in his life and this really made me reflect on my own journey through clinical rotations. I was able to take a step back and try to look at it from the patient's perspective. I remember when I was on gyn/onc, we were seeing a young patient with recurrent metastatic cervical cancer who had had a pretty long and complicated course. My attending at the time was running behind and wanted me to deliver the news that her biopsy confirmed recurrent metastatic cancer. This made me feel so uncomfortable - I can only imagine what the patient thought as a 4th year med student is delivering her this news and her own doctor was not even present. Ugh - I can still remember that situation plain as day.

So how do you exactly deliver 'bad news' to a patient while being compassionate and remaining professional. That is what our discussion with Gavin was about. We have to own our emotions and acknowledge them and not suppress them. Being able to identify emotions when they are happening and address them. And addressing them does not have to be something public. But repressing your emotions really can limit your interaction with patients as you can not fully 100% be in the moment. These things are really hard to talk about sometimes because not everyone is in your same situation. You can't learn how to deliver bad news from a text book and I think that regardless of how often you do it, it's never easy.

I pray that I do not become like my attending who sent me in with our patient with cervical cancer. I can not imagine if the roles were reversed and I was the patient - I certainly would have at least liked my physician to be present in the room. I also pray that I never lose my ability to be humble. I have flaws. I have emotions. I am a normal human being. Regardless of where I go in medicine and no matter how many times I am in difficult situations, I hope I never forget to be there, in the moment, with my patients. Even though it might be the 100th time I've delivered a certain diagnosis or prognosis, it is likely that patient's first time hearing those words. Medicine can be such a strange place sometimes. I'm not superwomen regardless of what others think or want me to be. I have to remain true to myself. I have to be able to not over extend and neglect myself in this field where it is so easy to let that happen.

This rotation has been so therapeutic for me. I've done a ton of reflecting on my experiences over these past 4 years of medical school. Wow, I've come a long way!

Gavin took us out on the property to get some passion fruit.

I spotted on super high up in the tree.

Gavin trying to get it down for me.

This is getting intense as Sean gives it a try.

Everyone is staring at this one little passion fruit.

It was the perfect passion fruit. Gavin thought it would make a good earring.

Kelsey and I eating our passion fruit. You bite off the end and suck the fruit out.

Doesn't this look absolutely disgusting?!

But it is seriously soooo good!

We them took K'hol on a little safari through the jungle.

Then we hiked.

Gavin showed us a fallout shelter the Hawaiians built during WWII for fear of being attacked by Japan.

This tunnel leads to the fallout shelter.

These are thimble berries. I wasn't a huge fan of them as they were a little tart but according to Gavin they are high in nutrients.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. J/K :)

I'm having Sean smell a cinnamon tree. It was soooo fragrant!

We are into some wild turkeys.

We stopped and Gavin got us guava. Again is looks disgusting. Some people really liked them but I didn't care for the flavor or the texture. I brought some extra ones home to mix in the ice cream :)

The group looking for my passion fruit to harvest.

These ones aren't ripe enough.

Gavin heading out to find more passion fruit.

These are called wood roses (I think). When they are green they have psychedelic properties.

Grove upon grove of macadamian nut trees.

Gavin teaching me about macadamian nuts.

Cracking open the macadamian nut shell. Fresh mac nuts are sooooo good!

The whole drive from our house to Gavin's and then also all around the property was made while the fuel light was on. We had 0.2 gallons of gas remaining when we filled up :) I'm glad we didn't run out in the middle of the property.