Finding Balance

I'm having trouble focusing in this embryology lecture so I'm going to write now and read up on the material later. It's day 5 and there has been a deluge of information thrown at us. The past two days have included embryology, basic life saving (CPR/AED/choking), histology, and finding balance.

I really wanted to write about the finding balance class because I think the ideas are going to help me stay sane whenever I feel overwhelmed. An integrative medicine doctor named Lee Lipsenthal (from Washington, DC!) created this series for other doctors because he realized that many docs were angry and couldn’t get past it. Medicine is a stressful profession- what other job allows you to work for 80 hours a week? Most people go into medicine because they really really want to and still the average age of physicians stopping practice is 57 because they burn out. Your emotions can also change a hundred times in an hour as you go from patient to patient. You have to recompose yourself if one patient dies and then you have to talk to another one. We have really high expectations of ourselves as well. A number of studies have been done showing high rates of depression and burnout in medical students as well as reports of belittlement and abuse... where does that abuse come from? Other medical professionals higher on the totem pole and patients as well!

So the question is, how do we handle this stress?

We were told to write down:
1) What our stressors are right now
2) What happens to us when we are stressed
3) What we do to decrease stress
4) Who we are and what our core values are -> we will have to remind ourselves
5) Write down 5 things we're really good at

All of these things created awareness of who we are and how to handle ourselves when we fall into stressful situations. We also watched a video (I really wish I could find it to post it), and in the video there were images of a guy driving through New York City. First the soundtrack was a bunch of harsh noises, honking and screeches; generally a very stressful feeling. Then the same video was played with joyful, classical music in the background. The difference was incredible. The video meant to show how our perception of situations is the ‘soundtrack’ playing in our heads while we watch the world go by. Your self-talk is that background music and when you feel like it’s turning into a negative tone, you have the ability to change that.

We spent the last seven minutes of class in a guided breathing meditation. Something I realized when my thoughts were straying was that pushing them away made them come back faster. Acknowledging that the thought was there and then bringing it in and keeping it with me made it much easier to focus on the meditation.

I'm glad we had this class early on and I hope other schools have it too. If you're in medicine and reading this, I hope you are keeping balance in your own life! Keep your soundtrack positive! :)