"I am not sure if I am deserving of this award," I said once again when going up to the podium to receive recognition for which I have worked years. The following day, a medical student during rounds expressed how happy she was to be on my team, and I followed with the phrase "There are better teams in the hospital than ours."
Those phrases are common when you are suffering from impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome can be defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, "'Imposters' suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that override any feelings of success or external proof of their competence."
I have suffered from impostor syndrome since my medical school years, and at times it has become debilitating to the point of making me feel paralyzed when facing a new opportunity. Questions like "Do I belong here?" "They made a mistake, right? I don't deserve this" have invaded my thoughts and taken away the joy of new achievements. On many occasions, I have let my impostor syndrome undermine my accomplishmentsI still remember crying in the bathroom of a very prestigious institution because I felt like an impostor when giving the keynote address of a statewide conference. I was crying because I had the fear that I would be discovered, and they would notice that I was not the right person for that keynote address.
