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Learning to say “no” is a popular topic for conferences and blogs targeted to women in medicine.
At the Girl Med Live 2018 conference, I heard, “No is a complete sentence.” At the time, I was an early career hospitalist, and the idea that I didn’t have to justify how I used my time was novel. In medical school and residency, I essentially spent my time doing activities assigned to me. Saying no wasn’t an option until suddenly it was.
Years later, at the 2023 Women in Medicine Summit, I attended Dr. Shola Ezeokoli’s breakout session “Saying NO: Why We Don’t, Why We Should, and How We Can.” I also studied this actionable flowchart from Dr. Grace Oliver’s SheMD blog post.
Through engagement with a community of women in medicine on social media, at conferences, and my institution, I finally understood the necessity of practicing saying no to have the time and energy to devote to activities that were fulfilling and advancing my career as a clinician-educator.
Knowing I wasn’t alone in finding this challenging was most empowering. A Doximity poll found that 75% of women in medicine spend significant amounts of time on nonpromotable tasks such as committees and administrative tasks. These take time away from the opportunities that align with our values and goals.
Feeling pride in my progress in establishing boundaries and prioritizing tasks, I was surprised at how ill-prepared I was to respond to hearing no.
When I received three rejections in quick succession from career opportunities I had applied for, I was in unfamiliar territory. I had my polite declines ready for opportunities that did not serve me, but no conference session had prepared me for how to absorb multiple rejections.
Reflecting on the experience as I attempted to lift myself from a pool of self-doubt, I realized that the reason I felt so lost wasn’t that I was led astray in being repeatedly told the importance of learning to say no. I felt lost because the same community of support that existed around saying no was missing when it came to hearing no.
Social media is full of people celebrating their yeses. Successful residency matches, promotions, publications, and awards fill my newsfeed. It’s far less common to see posts about rejections or failures. It becomes easy to convince yourself everyone else is succeeding but you.
I, too, turn to social media to share my triumphs. But interestingly, one of my more popular Tweets was an acknowledgment of an opportunity I did not get.
I don’t think people wanted me to fail, but I think I’m not alone in wanting a community to commiserate with.
When I looked closer at my newsfeeds, I saw that those comrades were posting their failures, role-modeling, and normalizing the fact that even incredibly successful people don’t get every opportunity they try for.
Dr. Sasha Shillcutt gave a TedTalk on The Art of Failing Forward. Dr. Olivia Davies created a “Failure CV” and posted it to her social media. Student Doctor Claire Duican shared on the SheMD blog the connection between her failures as a student-athlete and successes as a medical student.
So, I look back at 2019 me who was proud of myself for applying and saw growth in going for an opportunity. Even though rejection still stings, I aim to be part of the movement of normalizing hearing no.
