5: Dealing with devastating situations as a doctor

We start this episode on dealing with devastating situations as a doctor with Kristeen's memory of needing to lift her hands from the chest of her patient after the decision had been made to stop CPR. Any person would agree this is a discomposing situation to face for the first time - or even the fiftieth. However, it's not an unfamiliar situation for any doctor.      Today's podcast holds an important conversation about how we respond both to ourselves and in our medical culture when bad things happen, which they frequently do in our work.   Doctors find themselves somewhat relentlessly in situations that aren't most humans would find challenging. Our work selects in for a high level of exposure to tragic human situations.    When it comes to maintaining our integrity and health as doctors, while most of us would agree that emotional suppression is not a highly functional or adaptive long-term strategy, it's a strategy that many of us employ subconsciously.    Is it because we don't know how to do anything else?   Is it because our fast-paced, busy clinical environments don't create space for an alternative?   Is it because we actually think it's the most productive and adaptive response for a doctor? Is 'normalising' to suffering and loss a good thing as a doctor?   By asking and answering these questions, we hope to create some more clarity around what's going wrong, what's going right, and what we might be able to do better for ourselves and for our medical culture.    We are looking forward to you chiming in on this one. Please share your experiences and wisdom so that we can collectively learn how we can show up for ourselves, each other and our patients when bad things happen. 

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