Celebrating Women in Medicine Month: The Cat Who Taught Me Everything

By Miko Rose, DO, FNAOME, assistant dean for clinical education, associate professor and chief, Division of Psychiatry, Department of Clinical Medicine, Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences

It all started when he peed in my dresser drawer. He is my partner’s cat—a point I make often to both her and myself. I was putting away my laundry when this grey, scrawny, tiger striped cat jumped into my sock drawer and started walking around inside. He blinked his big, beautiful eyes at me, outlined by black fur highlights making them look even larger than they are. So sweet, I thought to myself, he must want to help me put away my laundry. But before I could even blink—he bent his legs down, crouched over and started urinating all over my clean socks and underwear. I desperately tried to stop him and shoved him away, yelling, “no, off” repeatedly, but he refused, spraying urine everywhere within the dresser drawer. I looked at the mess and could not believe this tiny little animal, with such a small bladder, had the ability to produce so much urine. I emptied the contents of the drawer into the laundry machine, washed my hands thoroughly, waited for the wash cycle to complete and started feeling that I had handled a difficult situation quite well. Just as I was internally congratulating myself and putting my freshly washed damp clothes into the dryer—this cat jumped into the dryer and peed on everything again. Yes, he jumped into the dryer.

I started to take this personally. Old childhood wounds started creeping up. Why me? Is it because I am a woman? Why does this always happen? Etc. etc.

Until I started to think about my practice in patient care. We have patients, for some in some well-known clinics, countless patients—who act out in aggression towards us, towards anyone, even just by walking into the room. They will metaphorically attempt to urinate over whatever they have access to in fits of anger. From my personal experience as a female physician and working with many other female physicians—this occurs disproportionately for us. Yet for my patients, I have much more compassion and understanding, knowing that these acts of aggression and anger are not personal. In fact, patients with severe mental illness will often later tell me they acted out in aggression because they felt safe to finally express their feelings. We are trained not to take these types of interactions personally, and for the most part, for those of us who’ve been working in the profession for years, we’ve learned not to do so. And yet, it may be harder for us not to take things personally in our personal lives.

From a psychology perspective, plenty of best-selling authors write about the lens of personal experience in any human interaction. Most of the time, our responses to others are based on our own personal wounds and histories as we work to get out of being stuck in our own cycles of stress. I needed this frank reminder from an aggressive little kitty to bring myself back to this lesson. This wasn’t personal. Eventually this same cat found items in my partner’s home office to send the same message. Whatever it is, it’s not personal. We all know this. Sometimes it just takes a humorous reminder to take us back to what we’ve learned in patient care. So this month, I encourage you to take a chapter out of our training. People continue to all be very challenged and stressed out these past few months, and just as in patient care, we would all benefit from a hefty dose of compassion—for our patients, for those in distress who are not our patients—and for ourselves.

Stay tuned this Friday for fun video tips on how to get through the day when facing unexpected challenges in patient care. I’ll be taking over AACOM’s Instagram account to share advice, stories and strategies for managing stressful situations and for not taking things personally. Don’t miss it!