Act With Empathy!
I’m writing this today, Monday April 21st, with my mind fresh from volunteering in the Boston Marathon all day. This was my 12th consecutive Boston Marathon assignment and 3rd consecutive year in a leadership position (captain of the 32 athletic trainers at the St James Finish Line Medical Tent). As you may know, the Boston Marathon is hugely important to me, especially in my professional development.
I wanted to share three important lessons I learned from being a medical volunteer today:
During the early morning medical symposium, Dr. Jeff Brown, the BAA chief psychologist, informed us that his research during last year’s race showed that for Boston Marathon finishers who finished with a time beyond 4 hours (around 8,100 runners), 20% of them had a pre-race diagnosis of a mental health condition. This includes anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and many others. His message was that we volunteers are human, and we get tired towards the end of our volunteer assignments, but it is even more important to treat with empathy with this 4+ hour group. It hit on the notion that you need to give 100% throughout the entirety of the day and then turn up the empathy even higher at the end of the day.
This empathy message became very important for me personally because I spent 15+ minutes in the late afternoon (beyond the 4+ hour mark) helping a confused finisher in his early 70s find his family. This is not uncommon but this gentleman informed me quietly that he had been suffering with Alzheimer’s disease for the past 2 years. Stop and think about that for a second. Do you know how hard it is to run a marathon, let alone in your 70s, AND TO BE DOING IT WITH ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE???? Truly unbelievable. So remembering Dr. Brown’s message, I turned the empathy dial up a bit higher. Him and I successfully found his family and he left my care in the good hands of his immediate family. Empathy drives high-quality care. Always treat others with empathy.
And lastly, more of a running-specific lesson I learned today: rolling hills are different than steep hills! At one point during the middle of the day, I helped care for a 23-year-old female in the ICU. She was from San Francisco who was concerned pre-race of Boston’s hills. However, from her perspective, “I live in SF. SF has plenty of hills. I’ll be fine.” What happened was she learned the difference today between the severity of the incline of SF’s hills (which are usually fairly short in distance) and the LONGEVITY of Boston’s hills (less steep than SF but longer). She presented to the ICU with some horrendous calf and hamstring cramping, along with profuse dizziness and hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). She also disclosed that she had a diagnosis of anxiety (see lesson 1 above) and struggled with the psychology piece of her perceived failure on the course’s hills. She did not fail; she successfully completed the marathon! But in the future, while training on steep hills is important, also work on the volume of your hill training. You should be able to handle both of these variables to be a versatile runner.
I’m sure I learned more than this today, but this will have to do. And naturally, I’ll be back next year to help the community accomplish their goals and selfishly, maybe I’ll learn a little bit more! For now, however, focus on treating others with empathy and good things will happen.