How working in a restaurant made me a better doctor | Expert Opinion

All sorts of people work in restaurants. Some are beginning a new life after immigrating. Others are restarting one after getting out of jail. There are career hospitality professionals — chefs, cooks, floor managers. Then, there were people like me, passing through, working toward something else.

In the late 1980s and early ’90s, I learned such things as how to make a proper béarnaise sauce and how to set a table efficiently. Useful skills, for sure, but I learned more foundational stuff, too.

In his novella “Last Night at the Lobster,” a Stewart O’Nan character said to her general manager, Manny, “I don’t know if you know this, but a lot of us only came in [today] because of you.” Personal connection was important for all of us who worked together. And personal brand was paramount for front-of-house staff (one of my many roles over the years) who needed to win over customers — and earn decent tips.

There are strong parallels in health care. I’m an employee with a personal brand, and my job is to apply my expertise to get each patient what he or she needs in a timely way, done safely and well, with a faint scar.

A restaurant at full steam is a lot of work, and everyone in the room — patrons, employees, managers — depends on someone else for something they need. It has to go down just so, in a timely way and without food poisoning. We couldn’t provide a memorable experience for everyone we served. High-minded mission became a sequence of reductive tasks, at times.

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The same happens in health care. Sometimes there are not enough hours in the day to get everyone everything they need at the just right moment. More bread to table 7, drinks to table 10, check to table 12. Discuss cancer diagnosis with patient in 521, review films for new consult, to the OR for a craniotomy. During the busiest times, when mission becomes checklist, I have to remember that people are often having major life inflection points on my watch.

I learned a lot about being a doctor when a restaurant server and friend was diagnosed with cancer. One time, she was in a hospital room by herself, radioactive seeds inside of her to beat back the disease. When I visited, I had to stay outside of a radius, to minimize my gamma dose. Blank cold room, echoing walls, a hard chair, out of arm’s reach, unable to hold her hand, I felt more lonely than not being there at all. The time with her after she came home became more meaningful.

Still, at the very end, Sarah’s big family surrounded her, but I wasn’t there. Dinner often ends best with dessert, but I skipped the last course with her. I regret this.

A freshman medical student with a full plate of study, friends, ideas, I just plowed ahead, setting aside her illness and passing. I thought I was learning to exercise professional reserve in the face of adversity, to keep going when things are hard. There are times for that. But it was still new and clumsy on me. I should have set aside my new detachment and just been a friend in those last moments.

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It was weeks before I wept, alone and once. She left me her CDs, but her real gift to me was the privilege of witnessing her illness. I learned that in order to honor and remember her life and our friendship, I had to pause, when my natural inclination was to keep moving.

Working in a restaurant was great preparation for being a doctor. I embedded on a team, contributed to a larger objective, discovered the pleasure in serving, loving and losing and learning along the way. And I can still make a respectable béarnaise.

Patrick Connolly is a Penn Medicine clinician and neurosurgery chief at Virtua.