Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Expertise

My first day of expertise. I'm beginning to find, through my studies, through my meetings of new people and observations of new situations: expertise is a frame of mind. No one person can be identified as an expert without their consent to this level of referral. An individual may be deemed an expert, but the pivotal moment of their acceptance or declining of this naming decides the longevity of their honorary value. Today, sitting in the hospital clinic room with a 7 year old girl in a hot pink sweat suit and her loving family members staring and watching my ever move... I waited. Through drawings of hearts and stories about playing computer games... I watched her small back. Eventually shifting to my view, I got a smile. I got a smile from the youngest person I would encounter all day. After hours of speaking to physicians and nurses and people who spent years writing and reading and testing themselves and testing others and publishing their work, I stepped into a room with the wisdom of a 7 year old. She brought me back to the wisdom of simplicity to the foundational roots of what makes each person in this world human. Feeling. And she reminded me of the essence of human interaction. feeling. It was the moment she smiled at me and drew me a heart on my pad of paper and told her mother she "could stay with 'the doctor' Emily" while the rest of the family went to dinner... or better yet... asked me to join the family for dinner at Hungry Howie's that I had recieved, all the validation in the world. If I could help a crying small girl with her back towards the world invite me to Hungry Howie's, I've got the ability to alter Feelings. I've got something. worth. giving. I have got. expertise.