This Month’s Philosopher: Bryan Bushick, MED'88, WG'89
To learn more about Bryan, click here.
LIFE LESSONS
If I knew then what I know now, I would have...
…maintained my license to practice medicine.
That said, I don’t regret the path I chose – often blazing a trail with early-stage ventures or accepting the challenge of a newly created position in larger companies – and am grateful for the diverse experiences as well as the relationships that have developed. Yet, with 40 years dedicated to healthcare (starting with a summer job as an orderly in a community hospital), I also have a heightened and refined regard for the special place of individual caregivers in serving patients and their families.
The intimacy, sanctity, and consequences of some patient interactions provide a unique opportunity as well as a responsibility. Many of my early career patient encounters created lasting memories. They also shaped my views and subsequent decisions.
I’ve greatly appreciated the chance to impact millions of people through various IT-enabled solutions with which I’ve been associated, and in other roles that improved population health. Even so, it would have been ideal to have somehow continued caring directly for patients or to be able to do so now.
High praise and gratitude to all caregivers: physicians, nurses, therapists, technicians, nursing assistants, and first responders.
If I knew then what I know now, I would NOT have...
…taken as many things so seriously.
Goal-oriented and naturally driven, I worked (and played) hard from a young age. I took to heart my commitments and any that were made to me, maintaining high standards for myself and those with whom I engaged. My diligence was accompanied by an intensity, and I did not often enough appreciate the context, the longer view, or the relative importance associated with many circumstances.
No question, the attributes noted above served me and others well. Yet, I now better appreciate the incredible benefits of reframing one’s views. I recognize that there are many fewer truly significant matters and that I’m much better off preserving my intensity and sense of gravity for those instances. Easing my way forward across many of life’s dimensions – no longer taking myself, my aims, my decisions, or my losses as seriously – is more sustainable, effective, and pleasant for me and, without a doubt, those with whom I interact.
I’m serious about that…;)
FAVORITE QUOTES
- “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” ~ Japanese proverb
- “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” ~ Ludwig Jacobowski, it seems, rather than Dr. Seuss, who often gets credit
- “It’s not having what you want. It’s wanting what you’ve got.” ~ Sheryl Crow
- “Life, if well lived, is long enough.” ~ Seneca
RECOMMENDED READING
- The One Life We’re Given by Mark Nepo
- The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
- The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Contact Bryan at [email protected].