The Right Stuff

Several years ago, the writer Tom Wolfe wrote a book about the Mercury Seven astronauts (the original astronauts, also known as Astronaut Group 1) called "The Right Stuff".  These courageous men (Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton) flew all six of the Mercury manned space missions, and members of the group continued in all of the human spaceflight programs during the 20th Century (Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle).  Wolfe conducted extensive research for the book, which also told the story of one test pilot who did not participate in the astronaut program, General Chuck Yeager, who may have been the best pilot of them all.  The book was made into a movie by the same name in 1983, which starred Ed Harris, Sam Shepard, Barbara Hershey, Scott Glenn, Fred Ward, and Dennis Quaid.  The book was great, and the movie was even better (at least in my opinion).

It takes a special mix of courage, grit, resilience, fortitude, machismo, and bravery to be a test pilot and an astronaut - these men had what Wolfe described as "the right stuff."  They lived by a code, and few men could live to their standards.  If I sound like I am glorifying what these men accomplished, it is because there is no other way to describe it.

I was thinking of this book (and movie) earlier this evening.  I was attending the annual meeting for our hospital's nursing staff, who are celebrating Nurses Week this week. Our CEO gave what I thought was the perfect metaphor for where we are in health care today.  He told a story about Chuck Yeager, the test pilot who was never selected for the astronaut program but who clearly had "the right stuff".  Yeager was the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound.  Apparently, it was well known among test pilots that whenever they approached the sound barrier, the plane would vibrate and violently shake.  Not very reassuring, I am sure!  As you can imagine, not knowing what would happen or whether the plane could withstand the tremendous forces required to push past the speed of sound, most test pilots would ease back on the throttle whenever this happened.  Yeager was the first test pilot to keep pushing the throttle forward to move past that point.  Once he broke the sound barrier, the vibrations and shaking stopped, and the plane flew smoothly again.  As Yeager described it, "We were flying supersonic! And it was smooth as a baby's bottom."

Yeager trusted his team and had faith in the men and women who had designed the plane.  He believed in himself, and he was brave enough to keep going.  Our CEO described how we are experiencing similar circumstances in health care today.  We are two plus years into a global pandemic, and our physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals are exhausted.  We are experiencing that violent shaking and vibrations that occur right up to the point where Yeager broke the sound barrier.  If we have trust in our teams and faith that things will get better, and if we are brave enough to keep pushing, we will push past the rough spots and end up flying smoothly again ("like a baby's bottom").

Our physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals are an amazing group.  Given what they have been through these past 2 years or so, and knowing what a great job they do in spite of these challenges, I would say that our team of health care professionals have "the right stuff" too.  Happy Nurses Week to nurses everywhere!