Reflecting back on the last 48 hours, I realize that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was planning on learning a lot of lessons that I could take back to my medical school and hospital system (which I have), but I was not expecting the bonds and community that we would build at Telluride this week. Residents, nurses, fellows, medical students…it’s an impressively broad, interdisciplinary group. And while it always feels really nice to develop these connections on a personal level, I think that it is something I need to take more seriously than I did at summer camps in high school. I’m going to need these people. When I get back to my hospital system – and adjust to a new one for residency next year – I’m not going to somehow feel or be more influential than when I left for Telluride. Things will still be operating for volume rather than outcomes. Informed consent will still look more often like a task than a conversation. And it is going to be really difficult to stand up, to speak up. I am slowly realizing that our group is going to be key for each of our individual changes at institutions across the country. We need to keep in contact and support each other. And I’m going to take that seriously.
