What is a “Good Doctor?”
Saving for Later, Forgetting Now
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts the other day, called “All The Hacks.” It’s a show about travel and finance, and even though it’s fairly male-centered (some might call it “bro-ey”), I find it has useful tips about different situations. The most recent episode had a finance expert who was talking about saving money for retirement in a fairly revolutionary way. He said there is a phenomenon where people might become so addicted to the idea of saving money for retirement to the point where they never ENJOY any of the money or use it. Like a miser, the saving of the money becomes the enjoyment. And his point was that saving for retirement is important but you should remember to enjoy your life while you’re still living it, using the money judiciously toward that.
And that really got me thinking: What’s the point of the grind if we forget to enjoy the benefits it gives us now?
Caregiving Means Two Things
Doctors have this term for our work: the Golden Handcuffs. Other professions may also use that term, I’m not sure. We work so very hard to succeed at this demanding profession, and it pays well, but we use that income to create a life where we are tied to this job forever, even if we’re unhappy.
We remind ourselves that we should feel happy about what we do, and we justify the exhaustion and the unhappy parts of our job, because we are serving others. We should feel joy in that.
As I said in my last post, I do receive validation from my job. I check all the boxes and conquer all the challenges which gives me a rush.
But checking all the boxes as a doctor means living the mission of caring for others. Not just “giving care” but also caring about them on an emotional level. Being a “good doctor” means seeing our patients as humans and connecting with them. And if we are too exhausted or burnt out, we can’t fully live that mission.
Normalizing Exhaustion
When I was a resident, I said it was “too much of a good thing.” Residents work 80 hours a week with no downtime and not enough recovery time. Yes, we were serving people and saving their lives, but we weren’t given enough time to recover from that backbreaking schedule to show up again as “good doctors” the next week. This situation led to burnout fairly quickly. I felt guilty for feeling this way; I felt weak. I normalized that feeling of working so hard that when I felt exhausted, I thought, “I must not be good enough. I should be happy because I’m helping people. I shouldn’t feel this tired; I’m used to working 24-hour shifts. What is wrong with me?”
As physicians, we’ve divorced ourselves from feeling like we deserve rest or deserve self-care. We should be able to push through. This is the schedule. This is the way, as the Mandalorian would say. Maybe this is behind some of what the finance expert was talking about; joy is for later. We suffer now for the cause.
Self Care = Being a Better Doctor
Personally, I just had my first weekend off since the beginning of August. September was a very busy, very stressful month for me. I did a lot of fulfilling things but I didn’t get much downtime. And I can feel that overwork start to drag me down sometimes. There’s a very close connection between depression and lack of sleep; the two can feed each other. Thankfully, I’ve learned to recognize that feeling from a distance and try to care more for myself to avoid it.
I took Sunday off and did not do any work. I know it was only a drop in the bucket, but it was a start. I can let myself enjoy my downtime now; I’m not putting it off for retirement or later. I can be a better doctor, not just a good one, if I remember to care for myself. And the more I normalize recognizing my human needs along with my job responsibilities, the more I humanize medicine.
