Vulnerable leadership

© 2016 The author(s). Published by informa uK Limited, trading as Taylor & francis Group. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CONTACT Louise younie [email protected] At a medical humanities educator workshop, a few years ago, we asked participants to bring an image or poem that they resonated with from the ‘Out of Our Heads’ website. 1 Images and words were shared with the group along with why they had been selected. Towards the end of our semi-circle was a senior clinician and an educator. His chosen image was one of a patient, sat in foetal position on a waiting room chair (http://www.outofourheads.net/oooh/handler.php?id=459). He had chosen this image because it reminded him of the patients’ vulnerability. He paused. It reminded him also of his own vulnerability. During the coffee break a fifth-year medical student shared with me how his words had been the most useful utterance she had heard for months, having just completed her finals. I probed a little deeper. She told me of student stress and bravado. To hear someone further down the line able to talk about his own vulnerability was, to her, like a breath of fresh air. I have pondered this anecdote for a number of years in the context of medical education and medical practice, and more recently in the light of my own dance with death through cancer. Why is it, I wonder, that we so rarely share our experiences of vulnerability either as students or qualified health professionals? I know from my own experiences that vulnerability and being a patient go hand in hand. As a patient there is little choice, but to embrace our fragile state when our mortal body has been assailed by some kind of pestilence. But for the healthy doctor who wields power in the lives of those struck by disease, vulnerability can be and often is held at arm’s length. Research suggests, however, that feelings of professional uncertainty do abound especially for students and young doctors in emotionally laden situations. [1] So it may be that we feel vulnerable but do not share or talk about it. A student writes about sitting in a breast cancer clinic and in one day hearing three people receive a diagnosis of breast cancer, the youngest being just a couple of years older than herself: We were discussing how it is almost taboo to show emotion about things like this, not only on the wards but also when chatting afterwards to other students. There is an unwritten rule that you have to prove ... that you can cope with hearing/having to give bad news and be absolutely fine with it. That’s the mark of a good doctorleaving it all in the hospital.[2]