Mental illness and the stigma around it is a huge issue in the house of medicine. I am not proud to say that I was taking care of a teen with severe anxiety in the ED. Her mom mentioned letting her take the day off school. My internal monologue was harsh and along the lines of, "that is not a valid reason to miss school". Of course, that monologue has been used on myself more than anyone. I think one of the contributors to unwellness and suicide in medicine is the attitude that experiencing emotions during or because of our work is "unprofessional". There is so much fear, anger, and grief we carried around before COVID and COVID compounded that. And then there's the shame. Medical education was, frankly, traumatic for me because of how much shame was a tool in training. I wrote about it in my substack a little while ago, but I had a patient death in training that was also a very shame filled experience, the message I took from my attendings was, "You're fine, and if you're not fine you better f-ing figure it out." Anyway, greatly appreciate this conversation and hope it continues.
Amy, thank you for giving voice to all these insidious elements of our culture that stifle humanity and our ability to tend to our own needs and health. Shame was indeed such an overt and subtle tool in the way we learned about our own capacities, boundaries, what it means to be of service, and how we learned to view mental illness in patients, peers, and ourselves. There's so much trauma and loss that too many of us have had to contend with and many health-harming ways of thinking that we've internalized and have to unlearn and relearn around all of this. Great to have your voice here as part of our community!
Thank you for this informative summary of where we are, what’s been done, and where we need to go. As a group, we do not talk and write enough about clinician wellbeing. The very notion that mental illness is a factor considered in licensure, and medical illnesses are not, is ludicrous. Your efforts to highlight these stories are greatly appreciated.
It's true — there's still a pervasive culture of silence around mental illness in clinicians. The cultural elements are starting to shift, brick by brick, but structurally, we still have so much to undo and do differently to enable clinicians to truly thrive. Thanks for being here.
Mental illness and the stigma around it is a huge issue in the house of medicine. I am not proud to say that I was taking care of a teen with severe anxiety in the ED. Her mom mentioned letting her take the day off school. My internal monologue was harsh and along the lines of, "that is not a valid reason to miss school". Of course, that monologue has been used on myself more than anyone. I think one of the contributors to unwellness and suicide in medicine is the attitude that experiencing emotions during or because of our work is "unprofessional". There is so much fear, anger, and grief we carried around before COVID and COVID compounded that. And then there's the shame. Medical education was, frankly, traumatic for me because of how much shame was a tool in training. I wrote about it in my substack a little while ago, but I had a patient death in training that was also a very shame filled experience, the message I took from my attendings was, "You're fine, and if you're not fine you better f-ing figure it out." Anyway, greatly appreciate this conversation and hope it continues.
Amy, thank you for giving voice to all these insidious elements of our culture that stifle humanity and our ability to tend to our own needs and health. Shame was indeed such an overt and subtle tool in the way we learned about our own capacities, boundaries, what it means to be of service, and how we learned to view mental illness in patients, peers, and ourselves. There's so much trauma and loss that too many of us have had to contend with and many health-harming ways of thinking that we've internalized and have to unlearn and relearn around all of this. Great to have your voice here as part of our community!
Thank you for this informative summary of where we are, what’s been done, and where we need to go. As a group, we do not talk and write enough about clinician wellbeing. The very notion that mental illness is a factor considered in licensure, and medical illnesses are not, is ludicrous. Your efforts to highlight these stories are greatly appreciated.
It's true — there's still a pervasive culture of silence around mental illness in clinicians. The cultural elements are starting to shift, brick by brick, but structurally, we still have so much to undo and do differently to enable clinicians to truly thrive. Thanks for being here.