01/06/2023
All jobs have their unique challenges, but let’s put medicine in the spotlight for today.
👩🏻⚕️👨🏼⚕️🧑🏽⚕️
At some stage, doctors you rely on have all experienced
the long hours, intensive training, the on-call with sleepless nights, the need to turn up at work the next day notwithstanding, taking home worries about patients, unsocial hours, compassion fatigue, burnout, fear of making mistakes, the increasing fear of litigation, the anxiety of board investigations, the difficulty in maintaining connections outside of work, poorly supported training rotations, the increasing violence against health care workers, and workplace bullying within a hierarchical training structure paired with punishing conditions. The accumulation of many of these moments is what puts our doctors at disproportionately high risk of poor mental health and su***de.
Operational targets in medical settings are often also set top-down by individuals that rarely set foot in the clinical domain, resulting in a mismatch between the clinical work demanded of them throughout their day to meet patient needs, and expectations from above.
The resilience myth in medicine - “When I was battling the demons of severe depression and suicidal ideation, the word ‘resilience’ was mentioned … well, more stated at me. You’re just not resilient enough … if only you were stronger … you’re just not able to cope … you know not everyone is cut out to be a doctor … have you considered another career? … you are too sensitive, too self-reflective, that’s your problem. I was a 20-year plus veteran in the profession however.” - Dr Geoff Toogood, Consultant Cardiologist and Founder of . Medicine takes a bright group of people who are caring, self-reflective and sensitive – is this not what one requires in a doctor? – and places them in a hostile and increasingly unforgiving environment. The result is an increase in mental health issues.
