Embracing Our Humanity as Doctors

I struggled to hold back the tears as the patient told me how his memory was failing and he knew he was developing dementia because of his family’s history. As doctors, we treat many horrible diseases, but what moved me to tears was the sheer terror the patient felt at “losing his mind” and becoming a burden to his loved ones. To handle all the terrible things we see in medicine, we often put up barriers to our emotions, yet sometimes this dam will burst if we keep piling up behind it.

To avoid burnout, we often need to turn off our emotions. Some may see us as hardened, but it is merely a survival tactic. It is hard to see suffering day after day, patient after patient, without being affected by it. While our patients expect empathy, they also need our professionalism, and it is often hard to balance both as we treat the worst diseases. How can we embrace our humanity as doctors?

• Admit we have emotions. Share them with our patients. It is okay to feel sad or bad about a patient outcome. When we are unfeeling, others see this as us not caring which is far from true. We care too much and sometimes have to muddle through to keep our emotions in check.
• Learn methods to divert our emotions when needed. Telling a patient they have terminal cancer can be an overwhelming experience. At these times, we need to stand strong and be a resource for our patients to get more information. It is good to go into the exam room prepared. While we cannot turn our feelings off and on like a faucet, we can learn to work through them.
• Have support in place. We all need someone to turn to when emotions get the better of us. Many of our colleagues feel the same way, and it often helps to discuss our hard cases with them. There is also nothing wrong with talking with a professional. A well-adjusted doctor is better than a burnt-out one.
• Be honest. If a patient has a bad prognosis, tell them in a caring way. We need to admit it to ourselves as well. We’ve been trained to treat diseases and save lives, but it is often difficult to know when to stop. Sometimes the best care is no care at all, and we need to stop seeing that as a failure.
• Own up to our mistakes. We are all human and none of us is perfect. Nothing hidden stays hidden. We need to address our mistakes as soon as we discover them and take steps to fix them and prevent them from happening again. Too many of us are driven to perfection, and we will always fail to attain that.
• Find enjoyment in life. It is often hard to leave work behind when we go home. We all are on-call at times, and we ruminate on our cases. It is difficult to put down the doctor hat down and put on our “just for fun” hat. However, our minds need breaks just as much as our bodies do. We will be better doctors if we step away from medicine at times.

Expectations on us are often overwhelming, but perhaps our own ideals are the most difficult to overcome. We need to permit humanity into our practice and leave automation to artificial intelligence. Science is advancing at warp speeds, yet our humanity remains the same. We need to share our humanity with others not only for them but also for ourselves.

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