Imagine you are cooking rice in a pressure cooker and instead of lowering the flame, you kept it at high for a long time, unbothered about the whistles warning you to lower it. If you keep ignoring it for long, you will experience an explosion with a visual scenario of a kitchen nightmare.
The analogy here represented might sound vague but the idea is to simply convey that
everything and every human being has a saturation point.
It’s no more a secret that the kind of stress and pressure doctors witness in their life is unusually high. The challenging nature of their work demands their sole attention, expertise, and empathy.
Daily, thousands of doctors face enormous pressure to save lives and this pressure has only increased in the recent years with the COVID pandemic. While they have no option to escape, their mental and physical well-being is gradually affected and soon they too, witness several complications impacting their health. They are on the battlefield every day and each day brings a new challenge for them.
In the constant battle of everyday life, eventually a saturation point comes which takes a severe toll on their health too.
Condition of Doctors in India
Indian Journal of Psychiatry study reveals that a significantly higher proportion of doctors in Indian setting experience stress, depression, and burnout. The presence of these things is associated with long working hours and negative patient-related outcomes, adverse doctor-patient interactions, and interpersonal interactions among colleagues.
Unfortunately, there are several studies like these supporting the same notion that there is an urgent need to develop mechanisms to evaluate the work-related stress, burnout, and depression among doctors and address the same.
Type of Stress Doctors face
No one can escape the stress from daily life, no matter which profession you are into, so what makes the stress faced by doctors so unbearable?
First, let us clear out that not every kind of stress is bad. Yes, you heard it right. Suppose you have a deadline to meet for your given work or an upcoming exam you need to study for, you might be having stress but that kind of stress motivates you to complete or face your task aligned, commonly known as Eustress, which is considered good for you. But the kind of stress doctors faces is known as Distress. Their demanding nature of work while catering to an unfair density of population and being expected to be perfect in multiple duties they are assigned can easily lead to depersonalization, increase in major medical errors, more fatigue, and this eventually deteriorates their academic performance while increasing the risk of substance abuse.
What can be done to reduce stress?
In the quest to serve society with selflessness, doctors invariably suffer the most and the sad part is that they have no one to turn to. Isn’t it ironic?
The solution, however, lies in the basics. If we wish to deliver sustainable health care for the future, amendments need to be made for the healthcare sector now.
Being Compassionate
Yes, this is the most simplest and effective solution. From our end just being a little more understanding and empathetic towards their profession, can make a huge difference.
●Normalize Mental Ailments
Sadly, mental ailment remains a social stigma and it’s ironic to hear this, but surprisingly, even many doctors find it equally hard to defy the social norms. Normalizing it can be a small step towards the betterment of not just doctors but society as a whole.
●The intervention of Tech Innovations
A windfall change in terms of technology is needed to make doctors' life smoother and health care facilities easily accessible. Many companies are working on creating automated software that is sustainable with far-reaching impact.
For instance, Docterz app is well-curated keeping the doctor’s perspective, stress, and challenges in mind. Adapting to this kind of technology can help easing doctor’s daily tasks while helping them decide what to prioritize.
●Self-Care
The doctors need to treat themselves the way they want their patients to be treated, with love and care.
The overwhelming duties they have to perform can lead to emotional, mental, physical meltdown easily.
Once in a while, they need to realize to consider themself as a priority. Indulging in things that make them happy can be a start. Final Words The current pandemic situation can be a subtle reminder that no one is immortal. Even the wealthiest of nations had their foundation is shaken with their health care system crumbling under the weight of inflow in cases, all this chaos left to be managed by our health care staff. Neglecting the stress and challenges which doctors are facing eventually would do more harm to us as a society. The time has come for us to move from accumulation to awareness, calculation to consciousness. A radical new orientation towards the health industry is much needed. Let us make it happen!