Celebrating Pride Month: A Meditation on Love from Dr. Solis

Linda Grace Solis, PhD, is an associate professor of Applied Humanities and assistant director of the Masters of Biomedical Science (MBS) Program at the University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Happy PRIDE!

Every year during PRIDE month, I find myself reflecting on love. PRIDE embodies the love and joy in the LGBTQ+ community, love and joy that some think should be hidden away. I think about how narrow our ideas about love can be, and I think it’s time we start talking about and practicing expansive, transformational love!

We don’t talk enough about love in medical education. We talk about respect, dignity, empathy, compassion… but we don’t talk about love. Love—for humanity, for our students, for the patient, for our colleagues—is at the root of these ideals. As osteopathic medical educators and students, our work is built on the trinity of body, mind and spirit, the whole of the human… and all humans deserve our love.

Love is the great equalizer; if we love the human, truly and wholly, our differences disappear. It doesn’t matter if the human is gay, trans, Black, white, Hispanic, Muslim, Jewish, Christian… we love them because they are human, because what we share—a beating heart, humanness—overcomes our differences.

It is time to love radically and to talk about it. In medical education, this means assuming everyone—learners, staff, faculty, administration—are doing their very best every day. It means acknowledging and loving the things that make each person human. It means being an upstander in the face of bullying and oppression. It means leaving judgment behind, treating everyone with respect (even if you don’t know them—respect isn’t earned; it’s a given). It also means doing concrete things like asking for and using preferred pronouns and names, acknowledging when we make mistakes, asking for help, giving help when asked and on and on and on—whatever we can do to make the people around us feel… well… loved.

Loving radically means having difficult conversations about difficult things, holding ourselves and one another accountable, finding joy in the mundane and in the fantastical and welcoming each person with open arms. Loving radically means keeping an open mind, operating from a growth mindset, forcing ourselves to identify and confront our own biases, all in the service of humanity, of humanness.

Starting now, this PRIDE month, practice radical, expansive, transformative love. Let your students and colleagues know you love them simply because they, like you, are human beings doing their very best in this world… even if that very best is sometimes messy or painful or uncomfortable. Let’s open our minds and our hearts to each other, let’s acknowledge and appreciate our differences and celebrate the simple fact that we, together, are humanity.