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I didn't know you were so stressed out...
When we first start out in medicine, we're all told it's coming:
One day you'll find yourself in court.
What they don't actually tell us:
How do you deal after you testify under oath for the first time?
To the Doctor Struggling with Burnout:
My friend,
I remember being where you are, feeling like there wasn't anyone who could possibly understand the darkness I found myself in.
The isolation.
The inability to explain the full weight of what I dealt with as a primary care physician every day to my very well-intentioned non-medical tribe.
The difficulty reconciling the knowledge that I was "living the dream" but in reality was merely existing in a living nightmare, my own personal hell I had spent my entire adult life trying to achieve.
I resisted for a long time to share my story - it's not an easy thing to do... it took me 2 years to even admit to my husband that I was struggling, and that in and of itself felt like a failure.
Because we should be stronger than this, right? We knew what we were getting into, we logically understood that we would see and endure a lot of suffering.
But to know this is different than to live this reality.
Death of a Primary Care Physician's Career: Part One
These last 11 months, I’ve been telling my story of burnout, but I suppose I should rename it Death of a Primary Care Physician's Career.
I’m letting go of the person, the doctor, I wanted to be.
Ironically, she is the person who dug this 6 foot hole for me, and now I’m laying her in it after 3 long years.
If You Could See Medicine Through My Eyes:
Millennial Doctor
It is no secret medicine has changed significantly over the last 30-40 years.
As a self-described “realist” with a healthy dose of cynicism, I’m not one for nostalgia. There is no true “Golden Age” – history is written by the victors, and of course they will paint their deeds in a positive light while leaving out the not so wonderful details. Each generation thinks they’ve had it harder than the one before them. Since the beginning of time, every generation has thought the next is annoying, lazy and entitled, making it a universal truth that teenagers are seen as the absolute worst.
I’m not sure we are so drastically different among generations, but we certainly are coming in at different stages of the boiling frog tale, thus our responses have changed accordingly.
Do You Remember Why You're Here?
Coronavirus is here.
The world has changed.
In the midst of all this anxiety and uncertainty, should you stay or should you go?
Do you remember why you're here?
About
Storyteller.
Millennial Doctor.
Former primary care physician turned hospitalist.
Wannabe photographer.
M.
I'm pulling back the veil on physician burnout to start some real and honest conversations.
It's time to show the emotion and humanity of medicine from the physician's point of view.
We no longer have to live in the shadows of fear and shame.
There is another way to live our lives.
And we don't need to go it alone.
Come join me.
Let's keep the conversation going!
Follow me on Instagram (stories) HERE where you can read my unfiltered reflections in real time!
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Talk soon,
M