Breaking the “Suck-It-Up” Cycle …

“Physician, heal thyself.”  Luke 4:23 in the Bible

Those of us in healthcare can be quite driven and often hold ourselves to standards we’d not even think of holding a loved one to, though too often we consciously or unconsciously may project our expectations onto colleagues.  Indeed, this week I had a powerful conversation with two physician colleagues, both of whom had numerous stories to share of times when they were quite ill or in physical/emotional distress, but rather than taking time for themselves to heal, they “sucked it up” and continued to work, somehow thinking this was the right and even noble thing to do.   Some of their stories were downright shocking, even for someone who has plenty of my own. 

We explored where such behavior originated, and agreed that there are many explanations, including our family/culture of origin, our own internal scripting, our formative education that told us that we were somehow special and “exceptional,”  and our professional training, which had us believing that expressing any of our own needs was a sign of weakness and perhaps evidence that we “didn’t have what it took” to work in healthcare.  And then, of course, there is our past and present work cultures. 

We all agreed that, as crazy as this behavior might seem to an unbiased observer and despite how much we talk about how “things” have changed, the fact is that such pressure to “suck it up” and “soldier on” continues today as part of the “unwritten rules” of being in healthcare and that in some strange way, this has been exacerbated by our present pandemic circumstances. 

We wondered how the cycle of such deeply ingrained behavior might be broken?  Each of us shared how powerful it was to simply have a colleague with whom we could actually talk about it, and who was able to provide a listening ear, another perspective, and some accountability for us to model our desired behavior.   And sadly, we lamented how rare it was to have such a professional relationship. 

So today, please help break the “suck it up” cycle by remembering that self-caring is not “selfish,” but rather sanity and ultimately good stewardship of ourselves.  This week, allow the gift who is your PeerRx partner to support you on your professional journey so that you can truly be well while doing good.   You patients, and you, deserve no less.