It’s not what you do. It’s who you are.

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

In 2015, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote about virtues in his column called “The Moral Bucket List”.  But he was actually writing about two different sets of virtues: our résumé virtues and our eulogy virtues.

The résumé virtues are what you do: the workplace skills you’d talk about when job-hunting.  The eulogy virtues are who you are:  what people will say about you at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, generous, funny, honest, trustworthy, etc. Both types of virtues are important and worth pursuing, but as David reminds us, only eulogy virtues have lasting value and legacy.  But depending on who’s doing the asking, it seems those résumé virtues appear to be far more important to certain people.    .

Developing résumé virtues is fairly straightforward. You go to school. You pass exams. You train for a career. You develop and practise demonstrable skills. You work hard. You might get more education to gain more skills and more success. You might earn a lot of money. You might even become famous in your field.

But the development of eulogy virtues is not as clear-cut. As David writes: “It involves a lifetime of making good decisions and prioritizing things of lasting value.’

I was reminded of the wisdom of his words while completing an opinion survey this past week. It was sent to me by The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the federal agency responsible for funding health and medical research here in Canada.

My only real qualification to volunteer my patient perspective to this research team was that I had lived experience in precisely the diagnosis that these researchers were studying, and I’d often written and spoken about that diagnosis. I have no medical training, no graduate degrees, nothing in my almost four decade-career working in the public relations field in corporate, government and non-profit sectors that would have provided me with the qualifications CIHR was looking for in patient partners.

Like me, you might assume this project would have asked for details about my history of patient engagement, community outreach or patient advocacy  (basically eulogy virtues that researchers need to know about their patient partners in the first place).

But no.

The opinion survey asked our opinions about what the original volunteer background form had asked patient partners – the same form that the CIHR sends to academics, professionals, researchers, and clinicians. This meant that most of the required fields were irrelevant to patients.

I love the way Carly Medosch explained her own reasons she spent years volunteering to help other patients like her living with Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD).  For example, she spent several years co-facilitating a monthly Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis support group at her local hospital. She moderated a Facebook support group so members could connect outside of meetings.  Carly and her mother even hosted a holiday party every year for the group members. Not only was she never compensated for her time, she paid out of her own pocket for all group expenses (like printing posters to distribute to doctors’ offices, for example).  This is how she explained on her Chronic Carly blog why volunteering to help other patients was so important to her:

“Of course, I did not choose to volunteer for fame and profit. I made the decision once I was healthy enough to have energy to spare, and was working close enough to home to have time to make it to monthly meetings.

“Above all, I wanted to help educate fellow patients struggling with IBD,  and help to fill the huge gap in education and information in my town. By facilitating the support group, I hoped to use my own experiences to help alleviate some of the unnecessary fear and isolation I knew people with IBD can feel.”

I’m guessing that all of the patients supported for years by Carly (and her Mom) didn’t give a flying fig about her career accomplishments, or where she went to university, or if she had any patents registered for medical inventions.

Theodore Roosevelt was quoted as saying these famous words:

“People don’t care about what you know, until they know how much you care.”

So my plea to CIHR is this: don’t insult us by asking any patient partners the same questions you send to academics – as if their résumé virtue responses are the only ones you value in the research projects you fund.

Ask us instead how much we care about other patients.

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NOTE FROM CAROLYN:  I wrote more about cardiac research in my book, “A Woman’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease“ , published by Johns Hopkins University Press.  You can ask for it at your local library or favourite bookshop (please support your independent  neighbourhood booksellers) or order it online (paperback, hardcover or e-book) at Amazon, or order it directly from my publisher (use their code HTWN to save 30% off the list price).

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Q:  Does it feel like “résumé virtues” are indeed valued more highly in our society than “eulogy virtues”?