There has been a lot of talk recently about the challenges in maintaining a positive perspective about your job in medicine. Whilst I must declare my bias and admit to being a fan of administrative processes, there’s certainly no doubting that the (mythical) work-life balance is being affected.
Today was a day for talking about mental health of medical practitioners, which you can read all about on the excellent crazysocks4docs site. In keeping with this, I reflected on my experiences of supportive colleagues and how we can make each other not feel quite as alone.
1.
I was once in the midst of a truly horrific weekend cover shift. The on call registrar had obviously heard the dozen emergency response/MET calls over the loudspeaker. They called my mobile through switch and offered to leave theatre to come and help on the ward. I’d never met them before. We can certainly stand to do better in not wilfully overlooking the problems we know our junior colleagues are facing.
2.
After a ~18 hour overnight recall shift, one of the team tried to present to work on 4 hours of sleep. We told them to leave and we’d cover their work, for reasons that really should be obvious. As easy as it is to blame the ‘system’, do please be nice to people.
3.
One consultant insisted that registrars manage the morning ward round independently, as preparation for pending clinical exams. An anxiety provoking task, to say the least. As it turned out, the boss was sneaking onto the ward at 0600 to review patient plans ahead of time. I thought this was, other than being really cute, a way to foster independence whilst still demonstrating support.
4.
There was a prolonged (48 hour) technical outage from a natural disaster that took out desk phones and network/computer access. Unsurprisingly, hospitals do not function without those things. I was pleasantly impressed by the camaraderie and understanding that emerged amongst the staff. Nobody yelled at me about making a bad referral! We should strive to replicate this consistently, rather than needing an act of God!
5.
A consultant heard (at least second or third hand) of some interpersonal conflict I had experienced. They made a specific point of finding me to discuss what had happened, how I had responded and whether anything needed to be done. It would have been very easy to disregard or overlook this. I really like the approach to closing the loop and following up with the affected person.