Medical Marriages

Last night was the second Matters of the Heart seminar of the year. For those of you who aren't part of Vanderbilt let me explain...

The VHA hosts a 4 part seminar series every year for members and their spouses that focuses on medical marriages. Since medical families have a unique set of challenges it provides our members the opportunity to learn from experts and mentors about how to cope with and survive times like residency, fellowship and beyond.

Anyway... last night we had Dr. Wayne Sotile speak about the balancing act that we as medical couples have to perform day in and day out to have a successful career, family and marriage all at the same time. His speech was amazing. Really. Amazing. I laughed a lot and got teary eyed a couple of times. This is my 3rd time to hear him speak and it was awesome. There were a few nuggets of truth that really spoke to me personally and I'm sure there were others that reached out and touched other people in the audience.

One of my teary-eyed moments came when he talked about the pictures in his study. Most are of his daughters, but he has two pictures of his wife. One that is a current picture that gets updated every year or so and the other is a black and white picture from her childhood. She has curly hair with a big bow and the frilliest dress I've ever seen. He said that when he and Mary are at odds or when they are dealing with some of their chronic issues (which God knows we all have) he always looks at the picture of a 5 year-old Mary because that is the person he's really dealing with in that moment. I think that's a really important thing to think about when you are fighting over dirty dishes or long hours or in laws.

I'm looking forward to reading the Sotiles' new book and highly suggest that everyone check out their literature.