by Jenny Andrews
BWW has been paused two weeks because I was scheduled to have surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff, and part of the recovery includes being unable to keyboard and mouse for a while. The surgery was rescheduled. The rescheduling was one of the many times in the last two years that gave me a new perspective on public defense.
I’ve been lucky to go five decades with minimal need to be a consumer of medical care. I grew up in a remote place, among people who rarely went to doctors. I’ve had no broken bones, no significant illnesses, no need for hospitals. I am grateful for years of good health, interrupted these last two years by a torn rotator cuff. And I’m still grateful because it is treatable and repairable.
But the parallels between the legal system and the medical system have been illuminating.
The times I’ve checked in for an appointment and spoken to someone with their back turned, not coming to the window, twenty feet away and focused on papers emerging from the printer, have reminded me of all the times I’ve been assigned to do three things at once, the times I’ve raced around courtrooms grabbing forms and moving in and out of several conversations simultaneously. This is not a recipe for optimal communication.
When I sit in my car confused about what just happened, and what will happen next, I think of the many clients who repeated questions I thought I’d answered—but apparently not in a way that was effective or understood. I’ve stared at medical scrawl and replayed conversations in my mind, wondering how the next step gets accomplished. MRI will happen somehow. Do I call them? Do you call them? And who deals with the insurance bureaucracy? I think of the times I was impatient with people I’ve represented for asking questions again, rather than thanking them for the feedback that I hadn’t been understood the first time. I resent these processes and checklists that reduce us to the goal of checking the box for “I said it,” however fast and formulaic, rather than following through to ensure the information was understood. I feel the impatience but it’s not with the client, it’s being forced to work at this pace.
And apparently surgery dates are like trial dates. Sometimes you follow the prep instructions and dress right and cancel work conferences and clear your schedule and then at the last second it gets cancelled. Maybe something was overbooked, or someone got sick, or it rained a lot. Unclear, you go into a rescheduling queue. I’ve probably given this news to hundreds of people who showed up for trial, and it’s an eye opening thing to experience it in another context.
After it was cancelled, my shoulder surgery was uncancelled and went smoothly last week. The positive outcome gives me new confidence in the doctors and nurses. I find I have less questions at the post op appointments. I don’t need to understand every step if I trust their expertise and advice. I am busy with daydreams of a future in which I can again do downward dog in yoga class, or hoist a sail, or put a carry-on bag into an overhead compartment.
Those of us working in these systems do it because we want to be of service, we want to provide care or advocacy with excellence. We get the credit and the blame for so many system factors, so many outcomes that are shaped by things outside of our control.
What do you think about the parallels between medicine and public defense?
The barriers to providing excellence are at the heart of moral injury, which I’ve been thinking about a lot as I follow my shoulder through it’s treatment journey. Wendy Dean and I will be in conversation about moral injury on April 23, 2025. We’ll be talking about Restorative Just Culture as Mitigation for Moral Injury, I hope you’ll join the conversation.
BeSustained 