Ep #294: Medico-Legal Fears

Katrina Ubell: Well, hello there, my friend. Welcome back. We are inching closer to 300. I  tell you when I first started this podcast, if you had told me I’d have 300  episodes, I would’ve just been like, “What? You’re crazy.” But here we are  every week, just moving forward. So, I’m recording this about … I don’t  know, is it about four to five days before my kids go back to school. 

And I read something recently, I think it was actually in the paper, where  this woman … it was an opinion piece, and she said, “I’m at the point in summer where I'm mourning that summer is over, even though it's still summer.” And that is kind of how I've been feeling. 

I’ve been trying to bring myself back into, but today, it’s still summer. And today, you don’t have to take anyone anywhere. And you don’t have to make lunches and make sure you're there in the pickup line or any of that  stuff. 

I have to say there is a little bit of a mourning process in my heart right now  that the summer fun is coming to an end. And I don’t know, I keep telling myself it’s usually two weeks of back to school and then it just starts to feel  normal again. And the structure actually is nice and it's all good. 

There’s kind of that freshness that comes in September, kind of like, “Here we are, off on the right foot, ready to get going again.” Especially if you have any children who are in school. So, it’s an exciting time and also, moving into fall, which is just such a great season, love it so much. 

Okay, let's talk about medical legal fears. I’ve talked briefly about getting  sued before. This was a long time ago, several years ago. I’ve noticed in  recent several many weeks, there’s been a bit of an uptick in medical legal  fears. 

The thing about this is, particularly in the United States, I think it's not quite  so bad in other countries; but particularly in the United States, it’s not new  for doctors to be aware of legal ramifications of their actions. 

We know that there’s a line, like what is considered malpractice, what's not.  We go to great lengths to understand what that line is to be really clear  about what’s okay to do, what's not okay, what’s allowed, what's not  allowed. 

And we recognize that there could be legal trouble in store if there are  certain actions that we take or certain actions that we don’t take. So, this is  a reality. This is something that doctors know. There’s a reason that we  carry malpractice insurance. And of course, we are human, but it’s not like  suddenly legal issues are becoming a thing for us. 

They’ve always been a thing for us. I think some specialties are dealing  with that more than others. And I think in some of the U.S. states in  particular, some of the laws, some are more pro-doctor and some are more  pro-patient. So, that can be a little bit different as well. 

But like I said, recently, I’ve seen an uptick in some of those fears. And that  seems to coincide with the U.S. Supreme court decision in June, which  turned abortion legislation over to individual states. And so, like I said, if  you’re not in the U.S., you probably have heard about this regardless, and  you might be seeing things online about this. You may have your own  thoughts and concerns about it, or maybe it’s not even really so much of an  issue, but I think you're still going to get a lot out of this episode.

Of course, if you are in the U.S. and particularly. if this has been something  that’s been a concern for you, then I just wanted to offer some ways of  approaching this. 

As I was thinking about this episode, I was thinking about the fear that  people experience. And I was kind of thinking about it in terms of a primary  fear, secondary fear, and tertiary fear. 

And the way I was describing that or kind of defining it as primary fear, is  the fear of legal ramifications that the good men and women who are  actively providing reproductive care to women right now, that they're  experiencing. This is not something to downplay. 

I actually saw something in the paper the other day. It was a chart with  various states and then a timeline. And they were showing how quickly the  laws about what’s allowed and what's not allowed have changed,  sometimes literally day-by-day, sometimes moment to moment, hour-to hour. I mean, it's really, really incredible. 

And I just want to say that anybody who's struggling with that, that is really,  really challenging to be in a position where you don’t know where the line  is, or you know that at any moment the line could change. So much of what  helps us to feel safe, knowing that there are legal ramifications potentially  to our actions is knowing where the line is. 

Where we’re like, okay, well, if I stay in this general vicinity, I know that I'm  keeping myself safe, so to speak. And when that line is changing all the  time, and you have to keep track of where that line is, that’s going be a lot  more challenging. And so, I just want to recognize that fear. I think for a lot  of people, the fear is actually covered up with anger. 

For a lot of people, and you may want to think about if you qualify for this  kind of thing as well. I know I do at times. We’ll go to anger first before we  actually recognize the fear. And the reason for that, is it's a bit of a fight or  flight kind of response. We're feeling like we're not safe, and so we just  want to attack. That’s the fight component. 

We’re just like super mad at all the things and all the people and all the  decisions, and can be really kind of stuck in anger. But when you really  work through the anger, there’s usually other things under there, and that is fear. Fear for the self, fear for patients, fear for all the people who are  impacted by this. 

So, I’m calling that the primary fear. These are the people who are in the  trenches doing this actual work. And I think it makes sense to have fear  surrounding that. 

Secondary fear is I think what's being experienced by doctors and others  who are really close to doctors who are offering reproductive care to  women. So, if you have a friend from medical school, or maybe you’re in a  Facebook group or something, and there’s these women or doctors in  general, men and women who are in the trenches doing this work and  you’re witness to their struggles and their fears and their confusion — it can  be easy for us to take that on, even when we are not actively offering that  reproductive care to women, or not actively dealing with the changes to the  legal ramifications. 

And so, it’s just important to recognize that; is this something that’s actually  directly impacting me? And if not, it's interesting. It’s like secondary. It’s like  we're watching this thing happen to other people, and then we’re getting  upset about it. And again, I'm not saying that we can't or shouldn’t, or it’s  bad to do that, but just recognizing that, “Oh, okay, this is a more  secondary kind of an effect on me.” 

And then what I’m calling tertiary fear is I think something that a lot of  women, particularly in America, are actually going through right now. And  I’m describing this as more like a deep down fear. If you really, really spend  some time really understanding what is going on for you, if you’re upset  about these decisions, it’s really that these changes are making a lot of  women question our value as women, questioning our autonomy of our  own bodies. 

We are upset and fearful of what often feels to a lot of people as a removal  of freedom. And often, that removal of freedom was decided on by men in  power, and often white men in power. And that has really shaken a lot of  women to their core in the sense that they feel like a right of theirs has  been removed. And that will create a lot of fear as well. 

And I think, again, this can be masked by anger and other things.  Sometimes it could be like, “Why am I just totally munching on food a lot more? Why am I zoning out in front of the TV a lot more?” It can be all an  effort to try to not deal with that fear that we're feeling. 

So, we understand that this fear exists. We understand that the fear comes  from the way that we think. But this is one of those situations where just  because we can think something different, doesn't mean that we really want to. 

And I just want to be clear on that. We want to make sure that we use  coaching tools to aid us. We don’t want to be using them against ourselves or telling ourselves we shouldn’t be feeling the way that we’re feeling. There's something wrong with us that we’re struggling in this way, because if we could just change our thinking, then we could feel better. 

We don’t want to be approaching ourselves in that way. There are definitely  times where we want to feel bad about something, and that's okay. We just  need to recognize that we are choosing to feel that. But I do think that we  have to just get really clear on what it is that we are choosing to feel bad  about, and making sure that we really are signing up for that. 

So, I have some thoughts, some things to kind of toss out there for you.  Feel free to take what resonates and what helps, leave what doesn’t. But  it's an opportunity for contemplation, for reflection, for building self awareness. This is just another one of those opportunities. 

I was just messaging with a friend today, it seems like these growth and  self-improvement opportunities never end. And it’s like, yep, here’s another one. But it just gives us the opportunity. We can just get through it, or we can also take it as an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and to  strengthen our relationships with ourselves. 

So, for the person who’s in that primary fear, the person who is actively  offering and providing reproductive care to women, I would just really  suggest that bringing yourself into the present as much as possible would  be really useful. When we are focusing on the future and worrying, it just  really makes us feel worse and more fearful. 

So, what I suggest focusing on when you can is identifying what are the  facts right now. And also, how can I stay up to date on what’s allowed right  now? Is there some sort of resource? I know there's been attorneys  offering free legal advice; like how can you do your very best to do your due diligence to make sure that you are staying up to date with what the laws are? 

Because it certainly doesn’t help if we are flippant with that, and then end  up finding ourselves in a difficult situation, something that we definitely  didn’t want, like a legal ramification. So, if we can find out what the facts are, it’s so much easier to make decisions moving forward about what we  should be doing. 

And then the second thing is working to process the fear, the anger, and all  the other emotions that would be coming up right now. Now, would be  really an excellent time to be getting coaching help or to be working with a  therapist. 

You don’t have to struggle through these things alone. Even just having  someone who can hold the space for you to just unpack everything, who’s  going to listen and challenge you in the best way, not try to convince you of something different. But also, not just agree with any thoughts that are  creating a lot of excess pain for you can be really, really healing and beneficial. So, that's what I would recommend there. 

 

And then also, just remember, this is a really hard time. This is a really,  really hard time to be a provider of reproductive care for women. And it’s  not going to last forever in terms of how difficult this feels, but it’s feeling  difficult right now and painful, and it’s okay for it to feel painful. 

That’s normal, you're not doing something wrong. We don’t have to sort of like rage to try to get away from the fear. We can actually process that in a way that’s really just more supportive for us, ultimately. 

Okay, experiencing secondary fear. So, I would recommend that you work to recognize how you’re taking on fear for other people. Sometimes we think that if we feel really, really bad, it'll somehow take some of that bad  feeling away from others who are in the trenches. And you cannot feel bad enough to relieve someone else’s pain. It just doesn't work that way. 

So, that doesn’t mean that you necessarily forget that that has happened or  ignore it or anything like that. But when you can bring yourself to the  present and really ask yourself, if how you're showing up for yourself and  others is actually helping them and you, you can start to figure out is my  response actually something that's going to be useful.

 

Of course, again, you’re going to be wanting to process the emotions that  come up for you. But if you find yourself stewing in that anger and that fear,  you might find that's really just not serving anybody. We want to process  those emotions and then we want to work on moving forward. 

And so many people feel like I want to get involved, I want to help, but they  don’t know what to do. And if that’s you, then I would just recommend that  you consider thinking about how you can focus that energy toward  becoming an advocate or more of an ally. Like finding out what can you  actually do that will help the people involved in this as they move forward. 

Because us just adding to the fear and anger, generally, isn’t creating any  positive results for anybody. So, that would be something to recognize. And  again, if you're feeling really stuck in those emotions, again coaching or  therapy can be very helpful with that. 

And then let’s talk about the tertiary fear, that deeper, deeper work. For this, I definitely recommend coaching or therapy if you're really struggling. 

The thing to remember here is that self worth and the value that you see in yourself. Your value as a human being, this is going to come from within. So, just because others don’t or don't appear to value women in the way  that you’d like them to do, doesn’t mean that you should agree with them. 

So, we want to be doing work on ourselves basically as an act of  resistance. We want to be focusing on supporting ourselves, making sure  we’re rock solid in our self worth, our confidence, our value, so that when we are coming into the world, when we're approaching the world, we are  actually helpful in moving things forward. So, it can be easy to sort of  devolve into this deep hole. 

And when you find yourself there, that’s when it's time to reach out that  hand. There are so many people, myself included, of course, because we  of course, cover all of these types of things in our program and weight loss  for doctors only as well. But there’s so many people who are there and  waiting and so willing and excited to help you do this work. 

Because like I said, it is act of resistance. It is a way to not only heal  ourselves in our generation, but also, to heal future generations as well, so  that as new decisions are made, by people in positions of power, everybody is given the freedoms that they desire and are supported in a  way that they need to be. 

So, I just want to leave it at that. I think there’s a lot to contemplate here. Of  course, this abortion issue is one that can be a hot button topic for a lot of  people, heavily partisan with people on either side. But I think people are feeling big emotions no matter what. 

And it’s just important that we recognize this is what’s happening for us,  how can we work through this, and then move forward in doing something  that really is productive, that really does help ourselves and help those  around us. And that's what I wanted to offer to you here. 

Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for your attention and I will catch you next time. Alright, take care. Bye-bye.