What Are You Grateful For In Practicing Medicine?

Many people who are not physicians may think that as a physician, you have many things to be grateful for:  the opportunity to improve people’s lives, to cure diseases and relief suffering, a steady and relatively high income, respectable job, to name a few. As a physician, I can share that, other than changing people’s lives, a physician does not necessarily mean having a steady job. Respectable? Certainly less so by patients and by institutions in general, compared to years ago. In the midst of the tremendous burden of patient documentation, administrative demands and insurance restrictions, it is more and more challenging to appreciate what the work of a physician means. It is difficult to be grateful when the very work you do is leading to stress, overwhelm and burnout.

This is exactly the time to be grateful. Your reflex thinking may lead you to feeling frustrated. You want to help patients the best way you can, to make a difference in theirs lives and be proud of what you do. Instead, you are weighed down by the extra hours of charting left over after seeing your last patient of the day. You are doing your best to justify with the insurance company the imaging study you ordered. The more you think about it, the more you are stressed about what medicine has become for you and for many physicians. What is there to be grateful for? Why do you want to be grateful?

Our lives are full of pleasant and unpleasant things. This will always be our reality; we just do not know what good and bad things are going to happen. It is unrealistic to expect only favorable things to be in our lives. At the same time, it is not possible to have only unfavorable things to exist in our lives, even though you may think that is the case. The more we focus on something, the more we find it. The more we focus on things we are not happy about, we find those things more. On the other hand, the more we seek for things to be grateful for, the more we find them. This is not only a brain exercise to be find things to be grateful for. This practice affects our overall well-being. It helps us better cope with difficult times. It helps us make better connections with other people. It helps us generate more empathy and compassion for others and for ourselves.

When you are grateful, the unpleasant things which used to cause you much anxiety and stress are more tolerable. This is not because the nature of those things changed. It is because your perspective is different and you are focused more on appreciation rather than on blame or complain.

Although I have always known that gratitude is a good practice, that gradually disappeared from my radar after years of suffocating in the extra hours of charting. “I should not be doing this [extra hours of patient documentation].” “No one understands the sacrifices I made.” While those two things are somewhat true, I also learned the transformative power of gratitude. Being grateful is not only for good times. Being grateful applies to any situation. I learned to be grateful every day before I was able to chart efficiently. I believe gratitude enhances the results favorably. When you are grateful, your heart is open to accept all things more readily – good or bad.

Being grateful comes from your heart. It is not just something you say. It is something you feel from inside out, something you cannot wait to share with others. So it is not a matter of “should be” grateful. It is a “choose to be grateful” type of situation. At present, I am no doubt grateful for the efficiency in charting I have mastered and the opportunity to share with others in my coaching. Just a little more than three years ago, I was at a miserable juncture of a choice between working the uncompensated for extra hours (because of charting) and quitting my job altogether. Then I was reminded that it was a choice. I chose to stay full-time. I chose to have the financial compensation. Since it was my choice, I was grateful for my choice, and grateful for the ability to choose. From that point onwards, I found more things to be grateful for – my family, friends, my coach, the nature around me, etc. Then I started to feel lighter mentally. The unpleasant things do not bother me as much. This does not mean I ignore them. In fact, I probably acknowledge them more than before. It is because I have more mental capacity to allow unpleasant things to coexist.

Gratitude helps us focus on what is good and pleasant. It also lessens the burden of stress and anxiety. Gratitude allows us to experience more pleasant emotions. With that, it is easier to focus on your work. It is easier to find ways to be more efficient and practice them. You have more capacity to connect with other people and to form meaningful relationships. You are more ready to find more happiness rather than dwelling in feeling stuck, angry or helpless. Gratitude is the true appreciation of something that comes from your heart. When you are grateful, you feel better, you connect better and you have better performance.