Feature Identifying the impostor within
Part one: What is impostor syndrome? By Hirschel McGinnis, MD
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The SIR Annual Scientific Meeting used to be a lonely week for me. While I was surrounded by peers, I felt isolated from
the group. On lucky days, I’d run into a colleague from training and we’d catch up for a few minutes. But during these conversations, I often felt I had little to show for all my once-great potential and years of grinding post-fellowship work. I would often wonder how I had gotten so lost in my career—despite my accomplishments, I sometimes felt like I wasn’t a “primetime” IR.
In a conversation with Daniel Y. Sze, MD, PhD, FSIR, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Interventional Radiology, he asked me, “Do you have impostor syndrome?” I’d never heard of it and thought he’d invented it as a foil to challenge some of my self-deprecating behaviors. Later in the week, I saw an article on impostor syndrome featured in a prominent medical journal. After reading the article, I realized I had a pernicious, toxic and perhaps end- stage case of impostor syndrome.
For the first time, I glimpsed the impostor within myself and better understood the dynamics behind the problematic trajectory of my career. I realized impostor syndrome had robbed me of some professional and personal opportunities and kept me mired in unsatisfying situations. What I have since discovered is that impostor syndrome is a pervasive phenomenon that cuts broadly throughout society and impacts professional fields— especially medicine.
18 IRQ | WINTER 2022
What is imposter syndrome? Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon and impostorism) is a psychological term first used in 1978 to describe a range of behaviors, feelings and attitudes rooted in a sense of unworthiness that affects an individual’s emotional well- being and professional functioning.1 Psychologists Pauline Rose Clance, PhD, and Suzanne Imes, PhD, describe it as the feeling of “phoniness in people who
believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.” Those affected are often very accomplished but hold internal doubts about their abilities and professional legitimacy and fear being exposed as fraudulent.1,2
Once imposter syndrome is activated, it can perpetuate a self-reinforcing cycle. This dynamic may produce feelings of excessive anxiety, poor self-esteem, self-doubt, frustration
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