Vera and her fibrous pineapple


My friend who is also in medical school - we'll call her Vera - attended what she called a very engaging Psychiatry lecture given by the queen of psychiatry(and of the Step 1 apparently), Dr. Kristin Kassaw. Dr. Kassaw covered many topics regarding physician burnout, one of which involved the tendency of many physicians to be "perfectionists." Now, I know that I definitely have this trait as a part of my personality, and I felt that this term nicely describes Vera. Vera, however, profusely denied this particular label.

She then told me an unrelated story, which I will attempt to recreate here, and you'll see my point when I'm done:

"So I had a really funny morning. You're gonna think I'm crazy when I tell you this. This morning, I decided to go to *Anonymous medical specialty* Grand Rounds because I had to talk to *insert famous faculty name here*. So I get there, and walk in to the room with my little plate of food and coffee and sit down. And as soon as I set my coffee down, I tell myself, Vera, don't spill your coffee! *laugh* So right after this, a grape rolls right off my plate onto the floor. I check to see if anyone's looking at me, and then I pick up the grape and I tried to throw it into the garbage, but I missed and it ricocheted off the side of the garbage can and landed behind the damn garbage can. I panicked. I looked to see if anyone was watching - thankfully no one was! Then, another grape rollls off the other side of the plate! And my coffee spills! But I tried to keep my cool, so I picked up the cup and started drinking the rest of my coffee like nothing happened. I didn't even clean up the coffee that had spilled! *laugh* So then I was eating my pineapple, cutting it with my fork. The chief resident was sitting right next to me, and so I trying to do my best in cutting my pineapple, so he wouldn't think that my surgical skills were terrible. *pause due to outburst of laughter from Devi* And then I realized that it's poor etiquette to cut your food with a fork, but I didn't have a knife. I was doing a good job cutting my pineapple, but there was this little strand of pineapple that I couldn't cut! I was getting nervous that the chief resident was watching me, and finally I managed to cut the strand. I didn't even bother with the rest of the pineapple on my plate."

Hmmmm Vera... ya think you're NOT a perfectionist?