…to criticism of any kind, from any source?  At work two days ago I made a mistake in my paperwork and was roundly criticized for it.  On top of the criticism was heaped more criticism for an unrelated subject.  I felt kicked while I was down.
Well there are many persons who could shake off an incident like this in a short time,  but I am not one of them.

To return briefly to basketball, this is one reason I relate to Jeremy.  I have noticed that for a jump shooter to make his basket he must have a certain threshold amount of immediate self esteem.  When Jeremy feels that he  is not valued by his coaches,  he tends to miss.

The same is true of me.  I feel that I have some modicum of long-term self esteem, but when I am  criticized I suffer a momentary (two-day long) loss.  To this I would add seeing the relative success of my friends and loved ones.  I have to somehow remind myself that what I achieve is significant too.

For me, my anesthesia cases are my jump shots, although I can give good anesthesia even when I am feeling shaky in my self-esteem.  This has been the product of a lot of work and experience, and two-day (or more) periods of mulling over my mistakes.  So maybe my sensitivity is adaptive in one way, in my learning from my mistakes. (Can I apply this to my daily life as well as my life as a clinician?)  Yesterday I was able to give my patients attentive, excellent care (one was a retired nurse).  A nurse friend at work consoled me while I was licking my ego wounds, saying, “Oh come on Ed, you’re a great doctor.”

So maybe fishing for compliments isn’t so bad either.