How can we stay resilient in difficult work times?
This piece has been circling round in my head for a bit now. I’ve been trying to think of ways to make it accessible without sounding like a self help article, yet keep the salient points in there, and remain true to the original course that it came from.
When we chose medicine as our career we didn’t choose it because we wanted a nice calm 9-5 job. We knew it would be stressful, we knew it would take over our lives, we knew there would be times it drained our psychological energy. Were we prepared for quite how much our energy would be drained? At times I don’t think so. The stress of having to be in three places at once, flip-flopping our circadian rhythm from night to day, rotating from job to job every three months, being new all the time and yet being empathic and attentive to our patients no matter how we feel inside.
Are we trained for this? Should there be sessions at medical school on building resilience?
The NHS has resilience built into it. We can cope with a few fallow years with stretched budgets, reduced investment, delay to equipment replacement, but after a while the strain starts to show. We have now had more than five fallow years. I find it immensely frustrating – a small investment or increase in budget would make our service so much better. The imposition of the new junior doctor contract was the last straw for many, crushing their remaining enthusiasm and draining their last drop of psychological energy.
At a recent rather excellent session on building resilience we discussed strategies for remaining positive and effective in a difficult work environment. Staying positive and enjoying your job at a time when there is a complete refusal to engage by government despite the protestations of the vast majority of the medical and nursing profession is hard, but essential. At this point I’m not just referring to the junior doctors dispute but the treatment of the NHS as a whole.
How do we avoid being drained? How do we remain happy and effective when our work environment is against us?
I think first and foremost we must build and vehemently protect our social support network. Working as a part of a supportive team, having people around you who build you up, who are positive and enhance your life, and who recharge your psychological energy pot. This includes us supporting others. Staying positive, building up others, avoiding draining their psychological energy.
As a part of world sleep day last month, my friend and sleep expert Mike Farquar (@thefourthcraw) filled his timeline with gems on how to optimise sleep, protect your rest times and deal with the constant jet lag of shift work. A well rested person has so much more to give to others, so much more reserve for difficult days.
There is so much more here to talk about – probably worthy of a couple of more blog posts, or even a series of its own. I think my take home message from this post is that we have to stay positive and keep ourselves in the optimum condition not only for doing our job but for keeping our personal lives happy and successful. We must actively protect our time, our relationships, and our reserves.
I want to acknowledge Ruth Roberts (@execstrength) for her ideas here. Thank you! I’d also like to throw this open to others. Please post ideas in the comments section or tweet using the hashtag #NHSresilience to collate them.