SAN FRANCISCO – Maintaining balance and enthusiasm – at home and at your practice – can seem to be an impossible challenge. And yet, without it – in every aspect of your life – you will be a less-capable physician, a less-engaged and happy spouse or friend, a less satisfied person, and not on top of your game.
That’s according to Dr. Linda Clever, an internist who is president of Renew, a project of the Institute for Health & Healing at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.
"It turns out that if we’re bored, if we’re sad, if we’re frightened, it leads to a loss of creativity, a loss of enthusiasm and engagement, and resilience and effectiveness, not just at work, but at home," Dr. Clever told attendees at the annual meeting of the American College of Physicians.
She was not discussing burnout, but something different. "If you’re rushing through the day just to get through the day, that’s an incipient sign of not being engaged," she said, calling that "a danger signal."
The key is to use your values as your foundation. "What gets you to happiness is living your values."
Dr. Clever said that people who are balanced, and at the top of their game:
• Have strong relationships.
• Have a religious or spiritual life of some sort, which might just be having a constant sense of wonder at the world.
• Take care of themselves.
• Like their work.
• Have the basic conviction that they can play the hand that’s dealt them. That is, the ways things are might not be the preferred way, but life is manageable.
During her presentation at the meeting, Dr. Clever led attendees through a variation on the workshops she gives at Renew. The program helps people identify and define their personal values, and offers ways to live out those values even while managing complex responsibilities and priorities. She asked attendees for their definition of success. Among the terms she collected: balance, happiness, peace, wellness, making a difference, money, and positive feedback. Control was also mentioned.
Dr. Clever said that control is a common term among physicians. Doctors "like to control things," she said. It’s not surprising, as they really have to be obsessive-compulsive, said Dr. Clever. "Who else is going to get a second creatinine? Who else is going to take a picture of that lesion and follow it for 3 days? Who else is going to draw a circle around that erythema and look at it again in 2 hours?" she asked.
But that creates what she called a "soft underbelly." The desire for control is a vulnerability because "when we aren’t perfect, it’s very hard on us, and it’s very disturbing," said Dr. Clever.
There are some things that physicians can control. The most important thing is to live your values. Values are what someone believes is good or bad, right or wrong, and what gives meaning, fuel, and joy. Once you know your values, then you can define success, and know how you will spend your time," she said.
When physician attendees were asked to share some of their values, they mentioned honesty, integrity, humor, empathy, compassion, self-sacrifice, tolerance, service, humility, charity, sustainability, spirituality, and respect for self and others. Values should be written down, discussed out loud and shared with loved ones, advised Dr. Clever.
Physicians, like anyone striving for balance, can also control their attitudes and how they respond and cope when faced with adversity. In that vein, she said, many people have been inspired by "Man's Search for Meaning," (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006) a memoir by psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who spent several years in Nazi concentration camps.
"Frankl wrote that the last human freedom is the freedom to choose your attitude in a given set of circumstances," said Dr. Clever. She said that physicians could adopt this philosophy and talk to their patients, or to their teenagers, about this concept. "You can choose to be a victim and you can choose to be a winner."
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, get help, advised Dr. Clever, adding, "That’s what money is for." Consider a gardener or a housekeeper or even a life coach. And, if things aren’t going well, don’t just complain. Also, give up what Dr. Clever calls "BMW": bitching, moaning, and whining.
Learn new tricks, she advised, especially if the old way isn’t working. "We have to get more comfortable with change."
"One new trick is to learn how to say ‘no,’ " Dr. Clever said. Physicians like to please and "it turns out if we’re doing too much, we can’t do anything well."