Receiving Thanks and Being Thankful in Radiology

I made an overdue return trip to New Orleans last month. Somehow, nearly a decade elapsed since my last vacation there.

Thinking back, my visits to that city are a fragmented snapshot summary of my radiological career. My first time there was for a nuclear medicine conference during junior year of my residency. Without looking at my CV, I wouldn’t be able to tell you that it was because I had assisted with some research on thyroid ablation. I don’t recall doing all that much academic work.

Nevertheless, I was there and without any peers around, I explored the place as best I could. The convention center and nearby hotel where I was staying were a decent walk from the French Quarter, which was the only area I knew to target. Each evening, I would wander over there to explore, people watch, and feed myself a bit before returning theoretically early enough to wake up for the next morning of the conference.

Fast forward about a decade, and I headed back there for a much less sensible trip. The telerad company for which I was working determined that I needed to get a Louisiana license, and evidently some muckety-muck on the state Board insisted on meeting all applicants personally.

On the telerad company’s dime, I flew down from my home in NY, met with the guy for five minutes so he could see I was a real, sane person, and flew right back that afternoon. It was the only air travel I had ever done without so much as a carry-on. I had enough spare time to get some beignets from Cafe du Monde upon arrival, and a fried oyster po’ boy before flying out.

It was several years more before I returned for my first proper vacay there. Now armed with sufficient time, money from a decent stint in the radiological field, and my lady (who had gone to college down yonder), I properly experienced the place. It was on the eve of Mardi Gras. I was glad to see it but one dose of that was enough for me. We made this year’s trip later in the season, this time centering on St. Patrick’s Day.

On two separate occasions during the trip, theretofore strangers who had gotten wind of my being a radiologist expressed sincere thanks for my professional work. It took me completely by surprise, although after the first incident, I was less knocked off balance by the second.

A lot of folks, me included, don’t expertly handle being complimented, and there has been more than a little psychological analysis of the phenomenon. I find that it can also happen when being thanked for things, especially when the thanks are for intangibles.

Being a radiologist, or indeed a doc of most kinds, is one such intangible. I can see a patient (or family member thereof) whose care I had actually impacted expressing gratitude. I did something for them, and hopefully did it well. I might also understand a “thank you for your service,” if I had been a military doc, volunteered in Doctors Without Borders, or donated my services in a time of crisis. Remember, for instance, at the height of the COVID lockdown, when folks were applauding through their windows for docs, nurses, et al?

Having complete strangers thank me, even in the name of “for all you do,” feels odd. The two individuals in question had both gone through medical ordeals, including multiple instances of imaging. There might very well have been radiologists involved who performed well, even gone above and beyond the call of duty but I had nothing to do with it. Accepting thanks for them feels a little like “stolen valor.”

Even without having particularly studied the phenomenon of compliments/thanks-related discomfort, at some point I came to understand that the interaction is really about the person expressing the positive sentiment, not the recipient. In the case of the folks recently thanking me, it was about their medical misadventures, not my career (details of which unknown to them).

Ideally, they had stumbled across a doc who did have something to do with their care. Happenstance provided them with a proxy — me — and that is good enough for expressing gratitude. My most polite, perhaps even mildly therapeutic function would be to accept in good grace.

Just saying something like “you’re welcome” feels to me like an abrupt dead-end to the conversation. I have mentioned the human instinct (and that of other social animals) of “reciprocity” in this blog before, and this is a fine example. I can’t let that unasked-for positive statement from someone else go unrequited. For them, it might be closing the loop for good things another doc did for them. For me, I need to keep the good energy flowing.

Not having been in the “thanks, rad!” situation many times, I haven’t developed a practiced response yet. In these two instances, I found myself offering a mix of two imperfect sentiments:

“It’s nothing, really,” is the less valuable of the pair. As mentioned earlier, the thanks/compliment is usually about the person expressing it, and dismissing it is kind of invalidating. My rendition isn’t quite that bad. My emphasis is that I don’t consider myself a hero. I might flesh that out by indicating there are docs more befitting such consideration, for instance the surgeons who physically put people back together and are ready to do it on a moment’s notice at all hours.

The other sentiment is that, at least for me, the job is its own reward. I have certainly worked in circumstances far less pleasant than the ones I do now, but I would have to think back years to recall anything more than the briefest of moments when I had sour thoughts regarding my career. My livelihood is mentally stimulating, physically untaxing, and financially robust. What could be better?

Saying such things, I don’t aim to convince my thankers that I am a satisfied guy. Rather, I hope to give them the notion that, wherever the rads may be who did right by them, they are also probably doing well. Even if they aren’t being directly thanked by the patients (and referring clinicians) they have helped, they are effectively receiving thanks via “good karma.”

As an aside to rads reading this who may differ, having found themselves in unhappy professional circumstances, hit me up on Twitter/X (@EricPostal_MD). The job market is very much in our favor, and if it hasn’t yet been good to you, fortunate rads like me might be able to help you improve your lot.