When I was growing up in Darjeeling, a single pair of school shoes had to last the entire year. They came from Bata, simple, sturdy, and meant to endure more than they reasonably could. My sister, just a year younger than me, had the exact same pair. Side by side, our shoes began their journey identical, but they did not age the same way. She was careful, measured, and gentle in her movements. I was none of those things. I ran when I could walk, climbed when I should have stood still, and turned every ordinary path into something like an adventure. By the middle of the year, my shoes would already be showing signs of exhaustion: soles thinning, seams loosening, leather surrendering. They were repaired more times than I can now remember. Buying a new pair was not an option. It was not neglect. It was reality. Resources were limited, and priorities were clear.

But what stayed with me far longer than the worn-out shoes were the quiet comments that floated around me in our extended family home. “There must be something wrong with her feet,” they would say. “Why else would her shoes wear out so quickly?” The conclusion seemed logical to them. To me, it was confusing. I did not feel anything was wrong. My feet carried me exactly where I wanted to go: faster, farther, freer. Still, when you hear something often enough as a child, it begins to echo in places you do not expect.

The lasting impact of childhood messaging

Years passed. I studied, worked hard, and eventually became a doctor. Life took me far from Darjeeling, across oceans, into a different world with different possibilities. One day, in the United States, I bought a pair of Clarks shoes. It was a simple purchase, almost forgettable at the time. But those shoes lasted. Not for a year. Not for a few repairs. They lasted over 13 years. 13 years of walking through hospital corridors, city streets, and quiet moments in between. 13 years without the soles giving way, without the seams splitting, without anyone questioning my feet. I still have them. And every time I look at those shoes, I do not just see durability. I see clarity. There was never anything wrong with my feet. They were never the problem.

How scarcity fuels imposter syndrome in medicine

Poverty has a quiet way of misplacing blame. It can make limitations feel like personal flaws, and circumstances feel like character defects. It can teach you to question parts of yourself that were never broken. This is a lesson many doctors from limited-resource backgrounds carry with them into adulthood, into medical school, and even into practice. When you grow up where every opportunity is scarce, where you are constantly measuring yourself against what you lack rather than what you have, you learn to attribute success to luck and struggle to internalize worth. You arrive in rooms filled with confidence, people who never had to question whether they belonged, and something inside you hesitates.

Imposter syndrome grows in that space. It whispers that you are here by accident. That someone will eventually notice the “cracks.” That others are naturally deserving, while you are merely fortunate. It is not born from incompetence; it is born from years of subtle messaging that made you doubt yourself long before you ever stepped into a hospital. But just like the story of those shoes, the conclusion is wrong. There is nothing accidental about the journey from scarcity to service. The discipline it takes to rise from limited means, to study without resources, to persist without reassurance, these are not weaknesses. They are evidence. Evidence of resilience, adaptability, and quiet strength. The very qualities that make a good doctor.

Reframing the narrative of belonging

Overcoming imposter syndrome does not come from suddenly becoming more capable. It comes from recognizing that you always were. It means reframing the narrative: You are not behind, you are forged differently. You are not less, you have done more with less. The same person who made worn-out shoes last through a year of running, climbing, and living fully is the same person who made it through years of training and uncertainty. And just as I once thought my feet were the problem, many physicians believe they themselves are the gap in the room. But often, the only thing that needed changing was the lens.

My shoes did not last because I lived fully in them. Because I ran, and climbed, and refused to be still. And years later, when I finally had the means to choose differently, nothing about me needed to change, only the shoes did. Some lessons stay with you. But some, thankfully, can be unlearned. And sometimes, healing begins with something as simple as realizing: It was never your feet. And it was never that you did not belong.

Archana Agarwal is a hematologist-oncologist.