For most family physicians, their calling to be a healer was cultivated through a yearning to make a difference in another person’s health and well-being. Yet for many physician’s early in their careers, the altruistic sense of service begins to feel more like duty, and the personal sacrifice it requires to be a successful physician starts to feel more like deprivation. The slow drain of compassion and enthusiasm for the profession could lead to compounding damage to personal relationships, avoidance of interpersonal communication, emotional dissociation, and increasing isolation – all major contributors to physician burnout.
It is time to recognize the unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of physician self-sacrifice. It is time to put the needs of America’s healer first. Come out of the shadows of professional isolation and join your peers for a frank conversation about professional isolation and the challenges facing a pathway back to the profession you idealized.
Set for Wednesday, July 19, at 12:15 p.m., free registration is open for members and their care teams to participate in the Combating Isolation through Focused Socialization webinar. This session is the sixth in an eleven-part webinar series that is dedicated to teaching healthy techniques and practices that will help family physicians become more focused on their own personal wellness.
“Being stuck in professional or personal isolation is not a natural state for human beings and we need to feed our relationships to feed our wellness,” said Nelson Heise, clinical director at the Ohio Physicians Health Program (OPHP) and the facilitator of the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians’ Wellness Wednesdays program. “The goal of this program will be to challenge the internal defenses that often prevent physicians to seek help and to explore several strategies that supports sustainable wellness,” continued Mr. Heise.
Wellness Wednesdays is a structured, monthly webinar series that focuses on enhancing professional and personal wellness through the joy of medicine. The series is facilitated by a licensed professional clinical counselor from the OPHP, offered free to physician members, and takes place the third Wednesday of each month over the typical lunch hour (12:15 – 1 p.m.) Participants will start each session with a brief overview of the discussion topic and then led through a practical exercise that helps the participant learn through self-exploration and personal awareness. Participants will have the opportunity to share their own insight at the end of the 45-minute program and make connections with their peers who are also interested in wellness and professional satisfaction.
Archives of the previously recorded sessions and resources can be accessed on the OAFP website.
If you have questions about the Wellness Wednesdays program, contact Deputy Executive Vice President Kate Mahler, CAE, or call 800.742.7327.