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How Do We Keep Showing Up? Dr. Marshall on Holding It Together for Our Patients
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Released: February 14, 2025

Expiration: February 13, 2026

John Marshall
John Marshall, MD
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How Do We Keep Showing Up? Dr. Marshall on Holding It Together for Our Patients

 

[00:00:05] John Marshall, MD

 

[00:14:39] You know, our world is getting turned upside down every day. There's a new pronouncement of what's going to be. I sort of am afraid to read the Washington Post every morning for every page. There is something else that I'm like, how could that be? And then you turn the page and like, how could that be? I have been thinking a lot, of course, as we all have about our lives and how they may be changing dramatically. Earlier this week, knowing that our team here at our cancer center is spending a lot of time, we're in Washington, thinking about the changes. We're thinking about the impact on research if they cap the indirects. We're thinking about how are we going to continue with NIH fellows who come here. For their training, if they shut down the NIH, etc. So, there are a lot of sort of scientific research questions. But then over the weekend, what really started to strike me is what's happening to our patients during all of this. You know, they come here for security, for care, for answers in what may be one of the most difficult times of their lives as they face cancers or hematologic problems, they're coming here for us to provide that. And that is what we and our whole team are called to do is embrace that patient in front of us and care for them and try to deliver the best message. But we know that on both sides of that exam room, there's a lot more anxiety underneath all of this, right? We as providers, the back of our heads are like, what's tomorrow going to hold? How am I going to hold up myself when all of this is going on? But at the same time, you have to be outwardly for that person in front of you and focused on the medical issues for the person in front of us.

 

Let's face it. Our jobs are hard already. Right? To get up and do what we do every day, year after year. But now you put this added burden on us, it makes it even that much harder. Think about who's on the other side of that room. What are they going through as they're confronting life threatening illnesses and side effects of treatment and all the different things that go with that. And they too are dealing with all of this unsettledness that's out there in the world. And so, I'm not sure I have any answers, but I did ask my team um, and I told them, uh, Officially that if they saw me and looked at me and said that guy needs a hug that I would welcome that hug, and vice versa. We need to take care of each other because our job is to also take care of those in front of us. So, what I've encouraged our team here. What I encourage your team there to do is huddle up. Make sure that you are talking and caring with each other so that we can do what is our most important job and that is caring for the person across from us, who knows what next week holds, who knows how unsettled our world will be, but stay tuned because we're going to review it right here.