Photo Credit: Andrew Hart
Lessons drawn from aviation can empower patients, inspiring patient journeys by encouraging them to rise above limits with a bird’s-eye view.
Shortly before she passed away from metastatic cancer, a thoughtful patient of mine left this beautiful poem by WWII pilot John Gillespie Magee Jr. in our team member’s office:
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air ….
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.¹
She shared a long legacy of pilots in her family, which she did not mention to me until the end of her life. I believe she embodied the themes of “High Flight,” looking to the sky for inspiration and solace while facing cancer on her own terms. In her honor, I share these quotes from bold women aviators, which I believe can inspire any personal or professional journey.²
- “No clouds can dim the sun within us.”
- “The sky has no gender, and neither does the love for flying.”
- “Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it.”
- “No one ever made history by playing it safe.”
- “The winds may be strong, but so are we.”
- “We dance with the wind and embrace the unknown.”
- “The sky is our canvas, and the plane is our brush.”
- “Our wings may be small, but our spirits are limitless.”
- “We were born to explore, not to conform.”
- “Fly not to escape life but to live it more fully.”
- “The sky is a constant reminder that there is no limit to what we can achieve.”
As a private pilot myself, I draw on lessons from aviation to empower not only my patients but also the next generation of doctors, encouraging them to transcend manmade boundaries by maintaining a “bird’s-eye view” of the world. I plan to expand on this concept in future “Journeys of Transformation” columns, including a sneak peek at a quote from my medical school personal statement.
