Overcoming Adversity: Its Impact in Advancing Health Care

Abstract

Adversity is an inherent and recurring feature in health care, impacting patient care, clinical training, and professional careers. This editorial describes the senior author’s (AKG) perception as to how patients, trainees, and he have transformed adversity into sustained positive impact. Patients undergoing reconstructive surgery frequently confront prognostic uncertainty, fragmented care, social isolation from peers, and insurance barriers. Health care trainees may experience negative or discouraging feedback that can lead to alteration or even complete change in their career ambitions. We demonstrate how patients have used these experiences towards initiating health care advocacy, how medical students have used these experiences towards refocusing their careers, and how the senior author has used these experiences towards building platforms to facilitate the career development of current trainees. Ultimately, the responsibility of educators, practitioners, and leaders in health care is to leverage adversity by analyzing circumstances that may have led to it and helping to either alter conditions such that others are not subject to the same conditions, or in guiding those who may follow towards a path that will reward them, rather than punish them, for their efforts. While adversity is unavoidable in all facets of health care, its impact can be shaped to serve as a foundation for growth and meaningful impact on others.