Untold Struggles of Physicians: Finding Balance and Support

hey how are you today good good so i've known you for a really long time and i value your friendship not only as a really old childhood friend but also all the free medical advice you give to the whole batch thank you so much for being there it's my honor uh so you know we were talking recently that you've gone through some personal challenges and as a physician who's practicing medicine in the u.s let's hear what you've gone through and your journey well uh thank you for offering me this opportunity to talk about it and since we've known each other since childhood i know i can talk freely and i don't fear being judged so i moved to the u.s uh about 25 years ago after i got married and um you know to get into medical practice in u.s is a big challenge uh combined with that new country new culture new family um all of those challenges uh affect everyone and they also affect physicians during those challenging years of training and practice Story we physicians uh are expected to be perfect human beings uh we build a lot of pressure on ourselves you know we are highly functioning but sometimes uh this gets the better uh out of us and we we seem to think we are invincible and we can overcome all challenges uh without seeking help so actually within the physician community in u.s there is a lot of anxiety and depression and there are statistics that there is a high rate of suicide in physicians a lot of professionals Support System do not seek help or seek help late so um since i was aware of this and i have had a very strong support system family but yeah i have a wonderful husband who is not a physician who has always been there for me and i would always get the the non-physician human sort of abstract perspective from him that after all being a physician and your profession uh is a part of you but you know you do have the same challenges as anyone else so for a long time i fought it on my own but a few years later i actually seeked counselling and that counseling helped a lot and i have been able to [Music] enjoy my life more Advice and also um professionally i feel that when i see patients suffering those those issues i have more empathy for them you can relate to it i can relate to it yeah so you it's basically what you're saying is that you just need to be a perfect human being right being a highly professional doctor you can't seem vulnerable you need to just be the right in the right you know check mark all the boxes i know i know and i that is what i want to convey that physicians have the same inadequacies same fallacies and i would encourage anyone and everyone to be at ease with yourself tread lightly you know have a light heart because ultimately you know ultimately most of the uh problems are in our minds so we are always living either in the past uh carrying that baggage or living in the future where we think that one day life will be perfect but we should always bring ourselves to the present that this is my personal uh i would say learning yeah that you can never have a perfect house you can never have a perfect spouse or perfect children but what you have today can be perfect yeah true great thank you so much either great talking to you thank you [Music]