How trust helped me through

I’m writing this in the second week after my open-heart surgery. I’m home and feeling well, and getting ready for my first physiotherapy sessions. I am reflecting on my experience and the notes I took and I have decided to start with the big one: Trust. Trust is the basis of all human interactions. That’s a huge statement, and one I repeat frequently with my clients and in my presentations. Trust helped pull me though my recent surgery.

I shopped around for my surgeon. I called on my network and checked out a few of the different places and people who could do my operation. When I sat with my surgeon for the first time it was Genevieve and I having a three-way discussion about my options and prognosis.

What would have happened if we hadn’t trusted each other? Without trust it’s difficult to have a relationship of mutual and positive outcomes. If you don’t have trust you’d better at least have, in declining order of effectiveness:

1. Respect
2. Compelling Mutual Goal/Context
3. Continual and Intense Communication
4. Power and Competition
5. The ability to “live with it”

Sound familiar? Many patients complain they don’t understand their surgery, or they feel powerless to get what they want. Eventually, many patients have to “live with it”, feeling pushed around by their medical staff and not a part of the process.

I wanted to trust my surgeon, and just as importantly, I wanted my surgeon and my medical team to trust me. What is trust? Here’s how I define trust as an outcome of four different aspects of the relationship:

• Capable: Can do what you say
• Reliable: Will do what you say
• Open: Will say what you do
• Principled: Will do what you should

When it comes to trust, like a crop, you reap what you sow. So of course, we asked many questions such as how many of these procedures the surgeon had done before, what the success rate was, what the options were and so on. One question in particular stood out for me. I wasn’t afraid of much with regard to the operation, but I did have a morbid dread of being one of those patients who “wake up” under anesthesia and experience the pain of the operation without being able to do anything about it. The surgeon’s response? “Yes, that would be terrible, and it does happen. That’s why we do X, Y and Z to minimize the chance of it happening during your operation.”

I liked that. He was clearly competent and didn’t try to sugar coat the risks for me. He empathized with my fears. He outlined what might happen, and the steps taken to minimize the risk. He was principled…he was open and frank with me and I trusted him as a result. But how did I come across to him?

Trust is a two way street. By doing my homework before our meeting I hoped he would see I was competent and reliable as well. I was open about what I knew I could do post-surgery, and what I felt was beyond me…and in our discussions I believe I came across as principled: someone who would do the right thing when needed.

And as it turned out, I believe my surgeon’s trust in me helped my recovery just as much as my trust in him. Certainly, when it came to my peace of mind it was much easier to be relaxed and focused believing I was in the best hands. When the medical team discussed my pain medications and my options for getting up and moving around they let me try to move forward at my own pace. They trusted that even if I wasn’t as pain medicated as many patients, and was trying to get up and walking quickly compared to others, I would be open with them about my limits and take responsibility for the outcomes. They let me try walking on the first day, and I was able to gently push myself to getting out of the ward on the fourth day post-op.

Our mutual trust worked well for both of us, and set the basis for our interactions together.