Playing Doctor

A first-year medical student examines an SP.
[The Young Doctor via wikimedia]

"Setting the Standard" might not exist if writing about the SP experience was more common. There are very few academic articles and even fewer personal essays. The few that do exist are single stories that generally approach the SP world from a outsider perspective, almost astounded: can you believe a job like this actually exists at your local medical school?

So I was delighted when I discovered the McSweeney's series "Playing Doctor" a few years ago. Robert Isenberg was the first author I found to write about the strange and wonderful complexities of being an SP in ways I recognized in my own life. I felt validated and inspired.

The Joys of Sickness & The Curious Case Of Trebor Grebnesi are the most spot-on at communicating the day-to-day experiences of SPs. As the series progressed I was looking forward to reading more. But my delight changed to sorrow when half the posts were suddenly removed and the series ended far too quickly.

Writing about your job on the internet carries inherent risks, and writing about students is twice as tricky. I'm a strong believer in boundaries. I believe in HIPAA and FERPA. But despite the care Robert apparently took ("all names, and many details, have been changed to protect student privacy") it wasn't enough.

So I am writing the blog I want to read. I hope to balance what is true for me with what is safe to write. But I also hope to find more voices and more experiences. I want to encourage SPs to write about what they know. I want to make a safe place for SPs to express themselves. If one of our primary skills is interpersonal communication, we need more of it, not less.