I should be careful not to give the impression that my memory is nearly flawless. I have some spectacular individual failures, and in general am not even in the same league with my wife in terms of the people who come to visit at church - or even have been there a few years - and their children, illnesses, and prayer requests. I should remember but I don't. I remember my third-grade class much better.
But certain types of memory served me well at work. When You are dialing the same 20 phone numbers and 20 fax numbers for 20 years I just don't understand why you don't just memorise them. But people liked writing them on a list or putting them on speed dial. I got so I just knew most of the zip codes in NH. It just saves a minute over and over again through the week. There were plenty of other numbers, including repeat patient's medical record numbers , dates of admission, and dates of birth. Similarly, I wouldn't remember patients so much by their history or their appearance, but by their addresses. Agency addresses were also useful, as we had to mail things out or record appointments on discharge paperwork. That's more than a little weird, but it worked a treat. Diagnostic codes, standard medications dosages, and the names and phone numbers of current caseload family members, bosses, or landlords were used all the time. When you work in a hospital, there's just acres of stuff it's easier to just know than to keep looking up. To me that's not using brain space but saving it, because it was mostly automatic.
A few times it was useful to remember place of birth and parent's names when someone had tried to take on a new identity.
Yet that is mostly just a curiosity. The real use of memory was in patient history, and because I would have the historical chart, I got to check my accuracy constantly. Yep. Married to Marjorie 1974-82, we had her as a patient twice as well, once during the marriage and once much later. It wasn't only shortcut for getting up to speed, it was also a very quick check on who was trying to fool us and who was being honest but just unreliable. Sometimes we would have a sibling who didn't know their older sister had been at our hospital, giving us a different perspective on the family of origin. It teaches you something, especially when the information is quite different and you have to sort out whether it is error or deception or both. I would have constant recheck because of the physical record, kept for years until it was all "simplified" around 2010, with only selected documents kept. There were others as good as I was on this score, and it was good to become aware of the type of thing I would get wrong. I would tend to shorten time, thinking we had had a patient at our hospital five years ago when it was actually nine. Sometimes worse. I would remember legal charges precisely, but be wildly off on sentences.
I mentioned previously that when I see old friends they get a kick out of what I remember: You went to nationals in fencing senior year and hoped you might finish in the top three. But you partied and were hung over and finished sixth. (If that sounds like I'm kicking my friend for screwing up, rest assured he was tickled that I remembered that he fenced at all, and certainly that he went to nationals. We had hundreds of lab theater and acting class plays over my four years, and I remembered a lot of who played what roles.
If this seems like bragging, understand that it is more like being defensive. I have had a couple of serious differences in the last few years, and it would be a legitimate challenge: Everyone's memory changes things a bit, why should I believe that yours is more accurate? Very occasionally I have some sort of written corroboration but usually it could just be a standoff. I told my granddaughter about the email exchange with an ex-GF who said we had "just drifted apart" but I recalled a moderately dramatic set of events. She got a kick out of that, as I hoped a fifteen-year-old would. As I have mentioned, I do know a few who are as good as I am or better, and I love to have them around. Iron sharpens iron and all that. Sometimes one new fact will open up whole avenues of memory, as it explains things that had been puzzling and just hanging out in the wind.
It should be fun going forward. I just got Daniel Schacter's Seven Sins of Memory for my birthday (oh right. I also remember birthdays, though that is uneven.) I may be about to find out that my understanding of memory is flat wrong. We'll see.
2 comments:
"Iron sharpens iron..."
My memory has always faded unless there are people remaining in my life to remind me of things I had otherwise forgotten. I can barely remember my childhood; almost none of my youth; even less of my 20s, which I spent with a group of friends I lost contact with completely after marriage; and even my 30s and early 40s are fading.
What does seem to work are photographs and conversations, which often recover unexpected things. Sometimes I encounter a photo I can't remember having taken for a while, and then it comes back to me with great clarity.
I suspect that means that it's all still there, somewhere, but that my brain is not wired to bring it forward. Unless another connection is made, I may never remember those things again. Perhaps they come to me in dreams, which I mostly don't remember either.
Interesting. I seldom remember dreams unless there is a change in my sleep pattern that brings it out. And then, unless I describe it aloud - which is seldom valuable - I forget it quickly.
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