The Vitality of a Strong Support System – Guest Blog post with Wonders Within Reach -

“The human body is made up of systems that keep it alive. The one that keeps you breathing, the one that keeps you standing, the one that makes you hungry, and the one that makes you happy. They’re all connected, take a piece out and everything else falls apart. And it’s only when our support systems look like they might fail us that you realize how much we depended on them all along.” – Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy.

I am truly obsessed with the dinosaur of television shows, Grey’s Anatomy. My consumption of the 300+ episodes available on Netflix has been sudden and frantic, but fruitful nonetheless. Over the past 9 months I have watched the entire series one and ⅞ times, ignoring all other shows and focusing my attention solely on the happenings of Grey Sloan Memorial. I’ve convinced myself that if I watch the show often enough, I will absorb all medical knowledge and become the next best thing to a medical student. Unfortunately, my second round of watching the show has not yet offered this all-knowing insight, but it has taught me quite a bit about the power of relationships in the medical field.

If you watch the show, you are probably thinking that I’m referring to quick visits to the on-call room in between surgeries and passion-driven kisses in absurdly slow-moving elevators. While Meredith and McDreamy’s love story does get my heart racing, I am more fascinated by the patients’ stories presented in each episode. Those patients that have a strong support system advocating for their care tend to either have the best outcomes or the most tragic deaths. This is not an accident.