Personal Perspective: One patient changed everything for me. This is how shame quietly thrives in medicine and why naming it may be the first step toward healing.
Shame contributes to physician burnout, depression, suicidal ideation and mental health issues in doctors.Shifting medical culture toward humanity and compassion is essential for physician healing.
Only, it wasn’t just that. He had a list of 12 things that he wanted to address. I did my best, but after 30 minutes in what was supposed to be a 15-minute visit, I finally said,"That’s all we have time for today."In that moment, I felt torn between my duty to provide the best care possible and the limits of the system I was working within. I wanted to give him theI tried to problem-solve."We were scheduled for 15 minutes.
I wanted to tell him how hard I was trying. That I cared. That I was drowning under an impossible workload. But in that moment, none of it mattered to him. A study published in JAMA found that nearly 82% of surgical residents experienced at least one adverse patient event during their residency and reported feelings of, shame, and rumination afterwards; 35% of these residents even considered quitting. Similarly, their faculty described feelings of guilt and shame, loss of, infallibility, and emotional detachment.
It’s funny how one patient—one moment—can change everything. The truth is, I was a resident, and I was learning. But the real lesson that day wasn’t aboutor agenda-setting; it was about what our patients aren’t telling us. It was about the ways our system fails them, and fails us.. I’ve learned the tricks of the trade to make patients feel seen and heard. I’ve learned how to set an agenda without making someone feel dismissed. And with experience, the medicine flows more naturally now.
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