Helping Physicians and Nurses
Trained to normalize the trauma
As physicians, you begin your career by enduring the trauma of medical school only to enter a healthcare system that limits what it means to be a doctor. Part of your training is to normalize the trauma. To name the unrelenting fight against suffering, disease, death, and despair as normal devalues and disenfranchises your attachment to humanity. The expertise of practicing medicine is often overshadowed by the need for speed while managing unrealistic expectations of “fix it now” consumers. The brutal facts of the physician’s reality center on the imbalance of being the expert, the guru with all the answers to magically fix the chaotic systems presented by your patients; therefore, you must create healthy boundaries to protect your “self” from the parasitic nature of practicing medicine: the stories never go away but they don’t kill you.
- Working in a broken system that has robbed you of much of the joy of your work
- You are called on to work intensely with other people’s problems
- You encounter demanding interpersonal situations with patient’s and caregivers that fall outside your training as a medical practitioner
- Understanding cumulative effects of contact with patients, known as vicarious trauma
- Learning empathic engagement with patients and care
- Learning empathic engagement with patients and caregivers
The Stockdale Paradox
The Stockdale Paradox is an appropriate way to describe the duality of the doctor/patient relationship, “Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. And at the same time, confront the most brutal facts of your current reality whatever they might be” (Collins, 2001, p. 86). When our military return from battle we anticipate and remediate Post Traumatic Stress; however, when our physicians return from working a 72-hour shift we expect them to go play golf. If you stand next to enough bleeding people you are bound to get bloody Being blind to the experience of profound trauma (PTSD)Perpetuating more trauma because of your unhealed PTSD.
- Isolation and lack of close interpersonal connections
- Paradox of feeling envied and despised Learning to have compassion for yourself and each other
- You are doing the best you can with limited resources and the imperfection of humanity
