Three Tips for Being a Healthier Doctor
Doctors have higher rates of suicide, substance abuse, and burnout than most people.
A large majority of medical residents say they would keep working even if they had vomited all night, saw blood in their urine, or experienced extreme anxiety.
Why? Because doctors are great at denying their own need for care. And, they work in an incredibly high-risk industry.
We’ve been working with physicians, nurses, and healthcare systems for 15 years, and we want to share with you our three most effective tips for staying, or becoming a happier, healthier doctor.
Face Fear
There are two emotional experiences that are so difficult to acknowledge, yet so crucial for health. And we consistently uncover them lurking beneath most self-sabotaging risk behaviors in doctors. The first of these is fear.
Fear of litigation. Fear of failure. Fear of letting someone down. Fear of making a mistake. So many aspects of our current healthcare climate create fear, yet it is impossible to fully control. Unless, and until doctors can experience, express, and share their fear with themselves and supportive others, this fear will be buried and come out in predictable ways. Self-righteous attitudes, rigid and dogmatic beliefs, perfectionism, and suspicion. The very thing they crave – to be respected and admired – is sacrificed. Instead, they settle for false power over others, perpetuating the very fear they are avoiding. The ultimate consequence of this behavior is forsaking everyone around them until they are alone.
The second of these key emotional experiences is the acceptance of loss and grief.
Accept Loss and Grief
Most patients have medical problems that will never be fully resolved. Chronic, recurring, life-style problems are the order of the day. This is really sad. And, the life of being a doctor involves incredible loss. Loss of life, loss of control, loss of predictability, loss of health, loss of freedom. A doctor who is able to authentically grieve the sadness of these losses will be healthier and happier. If this grief and loss is denied, predictable negative things will happen. Overworking, attempting to over-control everything and everyone, critical attacks on those who can’t think, obsessive preoccupation with time, money, and fairness. These behaviors are all fruitless attempts to control and prevent loss, and the grief that goes with it. The ultimate consequence of this behavior is even bigger losses. Loss of job, loss of privileges, loss of important relationships.
Invest in Relationships
Doctors work so hard to get where they are. They have passed exams, put in their time, been scrutinized by their peers. The majority of doctors are technically competent in their job. Competence is not the biggest problem.
The most important thing is quality of relationships – with self, patients, and peers. Happy patients don’t sue. Happy employees do better work. Happy doctors make fewer mistakes. Invest in relationships. Invest in communication skills. Invest in improving the quality of each and every interaction with the people in your life.
These tips are easier said than done, and it may require professional guidance and support. It will be worth it.
Go be afraid, be sad, and be connected. Your heart, soul, mind, and patients will thank you.
References: “When the Doctors Need Doctoring”, May/June issue of Psychology Today Writings by Dr. David Shapiro, Penn State College of MedicineClose Channels, Build Trust
The more I teach and use perceptions, parts and channels, the more I wonder if these may be the most cellular building blocks of trust. However grand you care to define trust, it all boils down to, and starts with, closing channels and matching perceptions.
Why do we communicate, and what are we looking for?
According to the Process Communication Model (PCM), there are five main channels, Interventive (protecting), Directive (telling), Requestive (asking), Nurturative (caring), and Emotive (playing). Humans communicate and are in relationship with each other by protecting, telling, asking, caring, and playing. And, logically, there can only be five channels because a) there are only five parts that initiate a channel, and b) if more than one channel was initiated by the same part, they wouldn’t be behaviorally distinct and distinguishable. Can you even comprehend how delighted it makes a Workaholic that PCM is so astonishingly logical?
The Rule of Communication
PCM trainers have taught the diagram hundreds of times - all five channels on one page, easy to see which parts go together, what personality type prefers each channel, and how to distinguish those channels that do double-duty. A great one-stop visual to summarize the Rule of Communication.
Trust at the most basic level
Here’s what enamors me; the Parts that close Channels. Scanning the right side of this diagram, notice that only two parts do all the work – the Emoter and Computer. Every Channel is closed by one of these two. I’m leaving out the Interventive channel since it’s not personality-specific. “Obviously,” you might be saying to yourself. It wouldn’t work or make any sense for the other parts to close a channel. Yeah, I know…I get that. Stick with me…
If the purpose of communication is to tell, ask, care, and play, then what is the end goal of communication? Based on the parts that close channels – there are only two end goals; safety and execution – “Am I safe with you?” and “Can I count on you?” My Emoter transparently shows you how what you’ve just said is resonating with me – where you stand with me. It fosters psychological safety by being transparent while providing the initiator with candid, non-attacking signals about where they stand. The Computer executes – does stuff, plain and simple.
Closing the Nurturative and Emotive channels with the Emoter sends the message “You are safe with me.” Closing the Directive and Requestive channels with the Computer sends the message, “You can count on me.”
From this cellular starting point we can begin building the larger context of trust in relationships, organizations, and communities.
Close Channels, Build Trust
Closing channels builds trust one interaction at a time. This is why we tell our clients that trust is made or broken from here forward. Trust begins now.
Training The Dragons In Your Life: Lessons From An Unlikely Hero
“I don’t want to kill a dragon.”
At this moment, we know that Hiccup has discovered something special within himself. For most of the movie, the scrawny, misfit son of a Viking warrior has repeated the phrase, “I can’t kill a dragon,” as if he is a victim of his own weakness and character flaws. As How to Train your Dragon unfolds, however, we experience a moving story of choice, courage, and the true meaning of compassion. What can the unlikely hero in this movie teach us?
Lesson 1: When drama is the norm, insanity rules
A village five generations old, yet every building is new. Why? Because the dragons keep destroying the village, and the stubborn inhabitants keep rebuilding it. In the dance of drama, people assume the roles of Persecutor, Rescuer, and Victim. The Persecutor righteously attacks or blames others for his own problems. The Rescuer martyrs herself overdoing for others without empowering them; and the Victim accepts the abuse day after day as if it’s his destiny. All three roles play off each other, and recruit others to join the dance. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. That’s the nature of Drama – lots of damage while nothing changes.
Lesson 2: Even good people (and dragons) do bad things
The Process Communication Model (PCM®) suggests that when people are not getting their inborn psychological needs met in healthy ways, they will attempt to get those same needs met in negative ways – which is called distress. Whether it’s a Viking father fearful that his son won’t make him proud as a dragon-slayer, or a toothless dragon who just wants a friend, we all can do some pretty damaging things out of desperation. How to train your dragon is a story of looking past the negative behaviors to the essential human needs beneath.
Lesson 3: Energy spent trying to control negative behavior is wasted
The entire identity and culture of the Viking clan is tied-up in defending against, and defeating the dragons. From elaborate books on the arsenals and ordinance of each dragon species, to dragon-slaying basic training, every waking hour is spent focusing on how to deal with negative attention behaviors. While his classmates are embroiled in gladiator-style trial and error, Hiccup discovers that attending to the authentic needs behind the negative behaviors of dragons increases his effectiveness and efficiency beyond what anyone else has imagined. Trying to control negative attention is fruitless.
Lesson 4: Cultures of Openness, Resourcefulness, and Persistence produce unlikely heroes
Hiccup makes the choice to respond openly, resourcefully, and persistently to the dragons. By opening himself up to the Night Fury, he creates a safe space for both to learn from each other, and gains the trust and protection of this feared dragon. He resourcefully applies his skills in new ways to make progress – for example, he uses his blacksmithing skills to craft a tail-fin prosthesis for his new friend. Rather than doing for the dragon, he assists the dragon in empowering itself. And, he persistently sticks with his new friend, Toothless, as they both learn how to fly with new appendages.
Lesson 5: Leveraging diversity can produce incredible results
For me, the final scene of this movie was the most poignant. As Hiccup awakes from the epic final battle, we realize he has lost his left leg. Then, we see that his blacksmith mentor has crafted him a cutting-edge prosthesis, already retrofitted to operate the system he originally built to help his dragon-friend fly. As the movie ends, these two imperfect beings are working together to compensate for their weaknesses and leverage their strengths. As others in the village come around, we see that they have made friends with, and learned to utilize the tremendous skills of the dragons to do good instead of harm. The Vikings have always been creative and dogged in their determination. The dragons have always been powerful. Finding ways to make these gifts mutually beneficial instead of mutually destructive was one of the most powerful lessons of the movie.
Lesson 6: Choosing compassion instead of drama takes courage and perseverance
Throughout the movie, Hiccup is ridiculed by his family and clan for being weak, stupid, and misguided. Yet he persists, realizing that while anyone can feel justified by doing the same thing they’ve always done, it takes much more courage to chose a new path. By dropping his knife at the moment he could have killed the most feared dragon of them all to become a hero in the Viking world, Hiccup chooses instead to find the connection between these two supposed enemies. By doing so, he changes the course of history for his village.
Choosing compassion instead of drama takes courage, and can reap benefits beyond your imagination. Make the effort today to learn new ways of relating to others, new ways of leveraging the diversity around you, and be a Hiccup in your world.
The Right Communication Tool
Communication takes on even greater importance in a small-staff association. Here’s how one organization found a process that works for them. Click here for link to the article in the ASAE & Association for Leadership website.