We’re better off if doctors take care of themselves
Stress for Success
August 24, 2010


When treated by your physician, especially for something serious, you want her or him to be alert and functioning on all cylinders, right? But what if your doc is seriously stressed out and unlikely to take care of himself? Does that mean you’ll suffer, too?

The medical journal The Lancet reported, “The emotional well-being of doctors is a major index of the quality of the health-care system as a whole.” This is a bit scary since this is also a profession with higher suicide, burnout, alcohol and substance abuse rates. “The baseline physician is walking around fairly burned out,” says Professor Dan Shapiro, chair of the department of humanities at Penn State College of Medicine. “We teach doctors that they have to be self-denying.” Besides, stress management isn’t taught in med school because physician stress isn’t recognized.

Dr. Suzanne Koven in a Psychology Today article says that doctors have a plethora of career-specific stress to deny, which can and does work against good mental health, such as:
* Those who get into and through medical school are likely competitive and perfectionists.
* Expectations within the field include toughing it out during difficult professional situations like exhaustive surgeries or very long hours. Shockingly, “a large majority of doctors in residency training say that they’d keep working if they had vomited all night, saw blood in their urine, or experienced extreme anxiety.” On occasion ignoring symptoms may be harmless but as a lifestyle over the years a physician can find herself in dire, physical and emotional shape.
* Other strains include long hours, sleep deprivation, medical school debt that pushes them to work harder, fear of being sued and of not performing perfectly, endless paperwork, meetings, etc. All of which can create chronic stress making them vulnerable to illness and disease development. In one survey 20% of medical trainees rated their mental health as “fair to poor.”
* Many have enormous workloads with great responsibilities while not practicing good stress management nor eating healthfully.
* To make a living, they have to see more patients in less time, defeating the reason they came into medicine. They’re chronically rushed and probably not focusing on patients as carefully as they should. “They’re like air traffic controllers with too many planes in the air,” Shapiro says.
* Shapiro points out that 75% of American health-care dollars goes to treating chronic illnesses leaving docs spending significant time caring for people who remain ill. This must be very frustrating and a serious contributor to burnout.

For these and other reasons too many doctors are hesitant to seek medical and psychiatric care. Additionally, this is a profession that operates with an unspoken code of silence so physicians are unlikely to report colleagues with substance abuse or psychological problems so they go untreated.

It’s in all of our best interests if those who care for our medical needs take better care of themselves. Physicians with improved self-care and less stress make for better patient care and presumably healthier patients, too.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple, at http://www.letyourbodywin.com/bookstore.html. Email her to request she speak to your organization at jferg8@aol.com.