A Healthcare career is a personal journey of sacrifices, struggles, challenges, and rewards. In the beginning, you are eager and striving, there is “pep” in your step and enthusiasm and optimism in your attitude. You are among your peers and colleagues and may likely be comparing yourself to others, but at the end of the day and at the end of your life, this walk is YOUR walk. This is your journey of choices, decisions, and experiences that may be life-changing or lifesaving and these influence and impact your health, well-being, and outlook.

I want you to know that you have support and that you are not alone!

-Where are you at this time in your life, in your career?

-Are you contemplating having a future in healthcare?

-Are you in the midst of studies as a student?

-Have you recently started to practice in your profession?

-Are you a seasoned healthcare professional, an expert in your field?

My decision to enter the healthcare field came at a point of major transition for me an...

Dear Doctor and Healthcare Professional,

This is your wake-up call! Where are you headed? 

Where are you at this point in your career and in your life? Whether you are just getting started, or well into the depths of your journey, it is likely you have encountered the deeply disturbing dilemma that the business of healthcare is not aligned with your expectations. This career path intended to restore health, hope, and well-being of others may prove to be detrimental to your own health, and result in personal suffering, loss of identity, and sadly, loss of self.

You once had a desire and made a commitment. Now, consider where you are and how you feel. Who are you today as compared to when you first started your medical career? Are you satisfied and fulfilled? Are you aligned with your values? If not, how is this affecting you?

You are not alone in your experiences. What is the true cost of remaining silent? You are a human being slowly eroding away inside as you push and pride yourse...

Have you ever experienced back to back days where your day off couldn’t come soon enough? The reality is that patient care is becoming more and more complex and is physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding. As a healthcare provider, you are required to invest so much of yourself and before you realize it, you are running on empty, feeling sick, discouraged, and unable to work effectively. You MUST have a self-care plan! If not, what is the alternative?

Whew! I have had a stretch of days where I was feeling the physical, mental, and emotional impact of patient care… the heavy lifting, deep listening, and out pouring of empathy. The sensitivity and creativity that was needed to work with and support my patients was as much rewarding as it was exhausting. During this same time, the weather didn’t make it any easier because it had been cloudy and rainy, the kind of days that make you want to stay under a warm comfy blanket or sit by a warm, toasty fireplace. The kind of days that ha...

What pleasure do you derive in your practice as a healthcare provider? Is your heart in your work? Are you feeling on purpose with your work? Are you caring for others with the best of your talents, feeling rewarded and fulfilled at the end of your day?

There comes a time when you may feel the strain and pull between helping others and saving yourself. You lose energy, heart, and interest…begin to feel depleted at the end of your day, and exhausted by the end of your week without a sense of recovery. There is a point in time when caring for your patients becomes counter-productive to your health and well-being, to your livelihood, and to the reason why you went into healthcare in the first place. The combined physical, mental, and emotional demand takes a cumulative toll that can lead to compassion fatigue, exhaustion, detachment, burnout, illness, and injury. This directly affects work performance, job satisfaction, morale, patient satisfaction, practitioner and patient safety, outco...

Working in Healthcare is not for the faint of heart. Certainly, it can be a rewarding career, however, it takes patience, perseverance, and personal upkeep (self-care) to sustain a healthy and enjoyable career and balanced lifestyle. The mental, emotional, and physical demands of working in healthcare are real and cumulative.

Whether you are a student or newly entering the medical field or have been working for years as a healthcare professional, your daily self-care routine and outlook on health matters. Good health and happiness is a choice you make every day and as a healthcare provider, it is also what you model in practice for your patients. Taking care of your health matters because it affects every aspect of your life! As a physical therapist, with over two decades of working to help people restore their health and livelihood, the necessity of closely tuning-in to my personal health becomes ever more apparent as I witness greater complexity of patient health struggles and deepl...

I believe we do the best we can with what we know to do, however, current practices are NOT sustainable or effective as they could be. Health professionals are being stretched and challenged to do more with less…less support, less time, less resources, less autonomy, and less capacity.

IS THERE A BETTER WAY?

How can we as a healthcare system do better?

How can you as an individual healthcare professional do better?

As a medical professional, you are required to be clinically competent as you CARE for your patients. You are expected to do the best you can in your area of expertise. After all, you made a commitment, you have invested time, money, and made sacrifices, and took an OATH. You have studied, trained, and practiced…REPEAT…

Here are a few questions I ask you to consider…

Are you really doing the best that you are capable of doing? How do you know that it is your best? What if you don’t know what you don’t know OR your knowledge and practice in your expertise has become so ...

Are you a Healthcare Professional feeling exhausted, disheartened, or on the verge of burnout? Have you knowingly put off your own health needs and now things are starting to take a toll? Are you questioning yourself, wondering what’s the point to all that you are doing? You’ve spent many precious years learning a skill, developing a practice, and building on a career in medicine, initially motivated by a desire to make a difference yet now starting to feel like you are losing yourself. Where did your enthusiasm go? What have you had to give up or sacrifice, only to feel like you are stuck and trapped in a system that slowly chips away at your heart and soul?

Like it or not, at some point during your life, you come face to face with yourself and your life choices. You can either keep on doing what you are doing or reflect on lessons learned through your experiences and begin to chart a new way forward. I have found that this reality check often comes after a sudden and unanticipated h...

Are you a healthcare professional trying to cope with work related stress? Your own self-care matters to help sustain your daily efforts especially in these very challenging times in healthcare. The demands and pressures are real and can have detrimental effects on your health, well-being and safety as well as your patients. Learning to effectively manage your stress is critical to the quality and personal satisfaction of your job performance.

Working as a healthcare professional can be highly stressful and is associated with higher rates of physical and psychological distress as compared to many other professions. Stressors may include work overload, time pressures, and caring for patients with difficult and complex medical illnesses. As a healthcare provider, dealing with high levels of stress that is ongoing without proper self-care can adversely affect your health making you more susceptible to illness and injuries. You may feel exhausted and burnt out, have trouble sleeping, have...

Responding to the immediate/life-saving needs of our patients and the public for healthcare professionals and first responders is both rewarding and challenging work. The witnessing of human suffering, life-and-death decisions, risk of personal harm, and high stress and intense workloads can begin to take toll on the health and well-being of front-line providers. These demanding and high stress roles can lead to a variety of health risks that range from musculoskeletal issues, to mental and emotional concerns that can lead to depression and burnout.

As stated in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, “There is growing agreement that the health and safety of patients is inextricably linked to the health and safety of those who care for them.”¹ (p803)

The necessity of a proactive approach to stress prevention and self-care management is critical for the health, well-being and safety of all persons involved in these highly intense and demanding roles.
Introducing the Sel...