The Glorious Gap

Heading into the interview, I look into the car mirror one last time, and adjust my head scarf. Hmm…will they discriminate against me for wearing a headscarf?!

A thought I’ve never had before.

And then I chuckle…and tell myself that I chose to wear the headscarf so that they wouldn’t discriminate against my illness.

My hair coming in patches would betray the secret of what this body had been through this past year.

I look at the resume I have in the folder. I double-check if it’s the updated one. The old one proudly proclaimed my Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner candidacy and my anticipated date of graduation. I should have graduated from that program by now, I should be interviewing for a psychiatric NP job instead.

But here I was with a shorter resume than last year.

I hit delete on my time in the psych np program and backspaced my clinical rotation experiences out of existence, now that it wasn’t going to mean anything yet.

And just like that, I erase all that I tried to accomplish because it’s not complete yet. Knowing to leave it on would mean having the harder conversation.

The conversation of when a Healthcare provider becomes a patient for a year.

Our health systems are always looking for providers to be kind, compassionate, and caring. I wonder if the hiring team will extend the same compassion to my situation, or will I be a liability to them? Too recently sick, the possibility of too many medical appointments, too risky for a health recurrence.

Too unpredictable for health systems in which clinicians are supposed to be omnipresent?

I get out of the car, catch one last reflection of this new version of me interviewing for a job for the first time after an incredibly medically complex year.

My resume doesn’t quite capture the resilience, flexibility, persistence, hope, tenacity, and temerity last year gave me. How I navigated complex health systems and advocated for my own health. How as a clinician, I have a deep sense of being able to “see” patients as they live with chronic illness and disastrous diagnoses.

How I coped with insurance as a patient and a provider. How I kept pushing and showing up for work despite treatments that needed recovery. How I gained so much strength and courage from my patients. How this lived experience will impact the way I understand patients and Healthcare systems.

The glorious gap on the resume that can’t be quite explained…yet.

I open the door to the interview office.
One deep breath to settle myself.
“Hello, I’m SC, I’m here to interview with Cassie for the NP role!”