Volume 7 no 4

EDITORIAL: Pandemic emergence dysphoria

Sharron Spicer, MD, FRCPC,

CCPE

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EDITORIAL: Pandemic emergence dysphoria

Sharron Spicer, MD, FRCPC, CCPE

 

I love leadership books. Sitting on my bookshelves, bold and stoic, they silently cheer me on through the challenges of leading. Sometimes I even open them up and read them! My mentors and fellow book-lovers, Dr. Johny Van Aerde and Dr. Rollie Nichol, have recommended many titles over the years. My collection grows faster than my ability to keep up.

 

Unfortunately, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of those potentially inspiring books have stayed put. The effort to read about leadership when immersed in it is sort of like reading a camping manual inside a leaking tent. Instead, I have escaped pandemic reality by reading fantasy novels.

 

One of my favourite rediscovered books is Ransom Riggs’ 2011 debut novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, also released as a movie in 2016.1,2 Each peculiar character has his or her own unique charm, “a recessive gene, carried down through families” that bestows upon them a supernatural ability. In a situation not unlike our pandemic experience, the main characters are trapped in a time loop that resets every 24 hours. And, as though forecasting the end of our pandemic, the movie theme song plays over and over: “There’s a new world comin’.” Top

 

For us, as for Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children, the new world will not be the same as the old one. Our pandemic experiences, both collective and individual, have affected us in ways that will shape our futures. We have witnessed suffering from illness and death, often exacerbated by the inequities already borne by those who are most vulnerable. We have humbly watched as racism — past and present — has been exposed in our systems of health care, housing, education, employment, and policing. Traumas over multiple settings and through generations have been revealed. The mood, as we emerge from this pandemic, is not entirely celebratory; for many of us, the moral residue of the past 18 months has left us with disquiet, a kind of “pandemic emergence dysphoria.” Like the delirium that sometimes arises when emerging from general anesthetic, feelings of confusion and agitation accompany our emergence from the COVID-related restrictions. We are uncertain how — or if — we will return to “normal.”

 

In Riggs’ 2014 sequel, Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children,3 he describes the sombre mood of the characters as they escape their tortuous time loop and enter a new reality. Top

 

We rowed out through the harbor, past bobbing boats weeping rust from their seams… We rowed past the old lighthouse, tranquil in the distance, which only last night had been the scene of so many traumas… Finally, we rowed past the breakwater and into the great blank open, and the glassy surface of the harbor gave way to little waves that chopped at the sides of our boats.

 

I heard a plane threading the clouds high above us and let my oars drag, neck craning up, arrested by a vision of our little armada from such a height.

 

This world I had chosen, and everything I had in it, and all our precious, peculiar lives, contained in three splinters of wood adrift upon the vast, unblinking eye of the sea.

 

Mercy.

 

I think back to how we coped as we entered the pandemic. We adapted. And we have continued to adapt. Sometimes more successfully than other times, but we have learned as we go how to do the things that are important. As medical leaders, this has truly been a time of adaptability as we have navigated complex and sometimes chaotic environments. Although our experiences may differ, I hope that we are all motivated to build a better post-pandemic world. Top

 

In this issue of CJPL, we share with you various experiences showing how leaders have responded to changing circumstances and evolving needs. Our articles highlight the importance of social connection: one shows how a group of hospital physicians created a peer support network and a virtual “physicians’ lounge” during the pandemic, and another describes how to intentionally build a network of professional connections. We show an example of leaders supporting residents in their education and mental well-being. We also see a new perspective on how leaders might identify and support physicians struggling with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Two timely book reviews round things out with readers’ insights: Unconventional Leadership and The Psychology of Pandemics.

 

I hope you enjoy this issue. I wish you all a safe and happy summer. And who knows — I may just open up a leadership book or two!

 

References

1.Riggs R. Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children. Philadelphia: Quirk Books; 2011.

2.Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children. Official trailer 2. Los Angeles: 20th Century Studios; 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN1uhnnKscY

3.Riggs R. Hollow city: the second novel of Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children. Philadelphia: Quirk Books; 2014.

 

Author

Sharron Spicer, MD, FRCPC, CCPE, is a pediatrician at Alberta Children’s Hospital, Calgary, Alberta.

 

Correspondence to:

sharron.spicer@ahs.ca

 

 

Top

EDITORIAL: Pandemic emergence dysphoria

Sharron Spicer, MD, FRCPC, CCPE

 

I love leadership books. Sitting on my bookshelves, bold and stoic, they silently cheer me on through the challenges of leading. Sometimes I even open them up and read them! My mentors and fellow book-lovers, Dr. Johny Van Aerde and Dr. Rollie Nichol, have recommended many titles over the years. My collection grows faster than my ability to keep up.

 

Unfortunately, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of those potentially inspiring books have stayed put. The effort to read about leadership when immersed in it is sort of like reading a camping manual inside a leaking tent. Instead, I have escaped pandemic reality by reading fantasy novels.

 

One of my favourite rediscovered books is Ransom Riggs’ 2011 debut novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, also released as a movie in 2016.1,2 Each peculiar character has his or her own unique charm, “a recessive gene, carried down through families” that bestows upon them a supernatural ability. In a situation not unlike our pandemic experience, the main characters are trapped in a time loop that resets every 24 hours. And, as though forecasting the end of our pandemic, the movie theme song plays over and over: “There’s a new world comin’.” Top

 

For us, as for Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children, the new world will not be the same as the old one. Our pandemic experiences, both collective and individual, have affected us in ways that will shape our futures. We have witnessed suffering from illness and death, often exacerbated by the inequities already borne by those who are most vulnerable. We have humbly watched as racism — past and present — has been exposed in our systems of health care, housing, education, employment, and policing. Traumas over multiple settings and through generations have been revealed. The mood, as we emerge from this pandemic, is not entirely celebratory; for many of us, the moral residue of the past 18 months has left us with disquiet, a kind of “pandemic emergence dysphoria.” Like the delirium that sometimes arises when emerging from general anesthetic, feelings of confusion and agitation accompany our emergence from the COVID-related restrictions. We are uncertain how — or if — we will return to “normal.”

 

In Riggs’ 2014 sequel, Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children,3 he describes the sombre mood of the characters as they escape their tortuous time loop and enter a new reality. Top

 

We rowed out through the harbor, past bobbing boats weeping rust from their seams… We rowed past the old lighthouse, tranquil in the distance, which only last night had been the scene of so many traumas… Finally, we rowed past the breakwater and into the great blank open, and the glassy surface of the harbor gave way to little waves that chopped at the sides of our boats.

 

I heard a plane threading the clouds high above us and let my oars drag, neck craning up, arrested by a vision of our little armada from such a height.

 

This world I had chosen, and everything I had in it, and all our precious, peculiar lives, contained in three splinters of wood adrift upon the vast, unblinking eye of the sea.

 

Mercy.

 

I think back to how we coped as we entered the pandemic. We adapted. And we have continued to adapt. Sometimes more successfully than other times, but we have learned as we go how to do the things that are important. As medical leaders, this has truly been a time of adaptability as we have navigated complex and sometimes chaotic environments. Although our experiences may differ, I hope that we are all motivated to build a better post-pandemic world. Top

 

In this issue of CJPL, we share with you various experiences showing how leaders have responded to changing circumstances and evolving needs. Our articles highlight the importance of social connection: one shows how a group of hospital physicians created a peer support network and a virtual “physicians’ lounge” during the pandemic, and another describes how to intentionally build a network of professional connections. We show an example of leaders supporting residents in their education and mental well-being. We also see a new perspective on how leaders might identify and support physicians struggling with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Two timely book reviews round things out with readers’ insights: Unconventional Leadership and The Psychology of Pandemics.

 

I hope you enjoy this issue. I wish you all a safe and happy summer. And who knows — I may just open up a leadership book or two!

 

References

1.Riggs R. Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children. Philadelphia: Quirk Books; 2011.

2.Miss Peregrine’s home for peculiar children. Official trailer 2. Los Angeles: 20th Century Studios; 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN1uhnnKscY

3.Riggs R. Hollow city: the second novel of Miss Peregrine’s peculiar children. Philadelphia: Quirk Books; 2014.

 

Author

Sharron Spicer, MD, FRCPC, CCPE, is a pediatrician at Alberta Children’s Hospital, Calgary, Alberta.

 

Correspondence to:

sharron.spicer@ahs.ca

 

 

Top

Unfortunately, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of those potentially inspiring books have stayed put. The effort to read about leadership when immersed in it is sort of like reading a camping manual inside a leaking tent. Instead, I have escaped pandemic reality by reading fantasy novels.