Two years ago, I’d grown frustrated by my inability to secure shadowing opportunities to help me prepare for medical school, and thought to myself, “How can I get into examination and delivery rooms without knowing any doctors?” Then a lightbulb clicked: I could have the patients invite me. So I completed training to become a doula.

Unfortunately, the experience made me realize that I don’t want to spend the next thirty years of my life listening to pregnant people talking about their “ideal birthing plans.” But it did leave me with the firm opinion that the best doctors are good listeners and even better teachers, who empower their patients to participate in their own care. That’s something I plan on taking with me in my eventual practice as a pediatrician.

In my training, I learned a pretty fantastic acronym that I want to share with you today. It’s a framework for asking questions about medical procedures so you can make informed decisions for your care. The acronym is a pretty simple one: BRAIN. Let’s jump into its five parts.

B is for benefits

How will taking this step help you? What do you get out of it? Think of this first step as the beginning of a pros and cons list. 

For the rest of this post, let’s use the hypothetical decision about whether to get a COVID vaccine. The benefits of getting vaccinated? You’re significantly less likely to die or experience severe illness if you contract COVID-19 (which also appears to be less likely if you’re vaccinated). Preliminary data also shows that you’re less likely to transmit COVID-19 to other people, since you have a reduced viral load: having fewer symptoms and having less of the virus in your body makes you less likely to cough the virus at other people.

R is for risks

Now onto the cons. How could taking this step harm you?

We know the idea that COVID vaccines have microchips hidden in them is absurd. But vaccines against COVID-19 are still very new – just like the disease they help protect against – so there simply aren’t studies that show their long-term effects on patients. Could the decision to get vaccinated make your uterus fall out, or sprout a horn in the middle of your forehead? It’s unlikely, but we don’t know yet.

A is for alternatives

Is there another way you could achieve these same benefits, but with no or fewer risks? Are there other possible solutions? What are they?

Maybe your friends and family have had negative experiences with the Moderna vaccine. What if you locate a vaccination site giving the Pfizer vaccine instead? Maybe you’re not thrilled about these new-fangled mRNA viruses. Is there a more traditional vaccine, one that uses inactive virus particles to help build your immune defense against COVID? (Yes, thanks to Johnson & Johnson). What happens if you take that instead?

I is for intuition

Let’s come back to this one.

N is for now or never

What happens if you don’t take this step now? Can you take it later? What if you never take this step? What will happen?

If you aren’t vaccinated now, what will happen? Will you have the opportunity to get the vaccine later, when there’s more data about its long-term effects? What do your county’s infection rates and adherence to safety protocol look like right now? If you don’t get the vaccine, are you able and willing to continue social distancing and wearing masks? What are your plans for protecting the immunocompromised people in your life if you choose not to be vaccinated?

Back to intuition

All right. Back to that intuition. Now that you’ve discussed the benefits, risks, alternatives and timing with your health care provider, what does your gut tell you? Is there a specific piece of evidence or data that informs that feeling? Discuss these gut feelings with your health care provider, too. They can’t force a treatment you refuse upon you, but they do have access to studies and information that you simply don’t have as a layperson: don’t forget to ask them what they think based off that knowledge.

And that’s the BRAIN acronym for you. *curtsies* Feel free to use for any big decisions in your life, not just the medical ones.

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One thing I want to make clear here: I believe in the vaccines’ safety and efficacy. I have received both Pfizer shots and had zero side effects. Thankfully, I still haven’t contracted COVID-19. But even if I had doubts about the vaccines, I would still have gone out of my way to be vaccinated.

My son with Down syndrome is ten times more likely to die from COVID than people without Down syndrome. At the beginning of the pandemic, my younger son was immunocompromised after a year of chemotherapy. People often say, “I’d do anything for my kids.” But I really would. I already quit my job rather than return in-person. And I would absolutely get vaccinated no matter the risk to myself, if it lowered the risk of COVID killing my children, who still can’t be vaccinated themselves. The more people choose vaccination, the closer we get to herd immunity, and the sooner we reach her immunity, the sooner my high-risk kids can go back to in-person school and daycare.