Grief, Gratitude, and Untangling Personal Identity from Professional Roles: A Physician's Journey

Ever found yourself entangled in the web of your professional identity, losing sight of the person behind the white coat? You're not alone. As physicians, we often tether our self-worth to our credentials, earning, and titles, leaving little room to nurture our persona beyond the confines of our clinics and hospitals. Join me, Dr. Sapna Shah-Haque, in this candid discussion on an episode of The Worthy Physician as we navigate this challenging terrain, examining the delicate equilibrium between our personal and professional identities.

As we traverse the demanding journey of medical practice, burnout isn't just a possibility but a commonality. Balancing long hours, dealing with administrative burdens, and shouldering patient expectations can lead to an existential crisis - who are we, if not physicians? Hear my personal narrative of burnout, the subsequent grief, the questioning of purpose, and the journey to rediscovering my identity outside of medicine. We'll discuss how this struggle can lead to a revelation, a chance to reassess our priorities and emerge stronger, infused with gratitude and a renewed sense of self. So, are you ready to untangle your identity from your profession and explore the person behind the physician?

Though I am a physician, this is not medical advice. This is only a tool that physicians can use to get ideas on how to deal with burnout and/or know they are not alone. If you are in need of medical assistance talk to your physician.


Learn more about female physicians' journey through burnout to thriving!
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Many of us tie our self-worth or even our identity based on our credentials, our title for work, what we do for work, or how much we generate, how big your bank account is. Today we're going to dive into grief surrounding purpose and identity and coming out on the other side full of gratitude. Welcome to another episode of the Worthy Physician. I'm your host, dr Sapna Shahok, reigniting your humanity and passion for medicine. So let's get to the chase. When we go into medical school, unless you're a non-traditional student, more than likely you are going to be around the age of 22, 23. And then, if we keep in mind that the human brain does not fully develop into an executive function and adult brain, to about the age of 25. We spend very impressionable and formative years in undergraduate, graduate degrees, medical school, always jumping through hoops, always having a trajectory really drawn out for us. What does that have to do with identity and purpose? Well, we spend so much of our time being told what to do and how to do it, and by achieving so much of what we do is based on achievement to reach the next level. So, while we are being expected to reach a certain score in the MCAT, a certain score on step one, step two, step three matching your residency at a top tier program. There are a lot of self-worth that is attached to that. Unfortunately, it also carries over into attending hood. And one thing that is very difficult to break away from is the fact that we are more than just physicians. We have spent so much time really a decade or more of accumulating degrees, titles, experience, and then when we get out into the real world, it's like what are my hobbies? Do I like to do for fun? What does fun even really look like? And then getting into the world of how medicine is actually practiced compared to how we were trained with how toxic the environment can be, prior authorizations, rejections, the standard of care that we have versus patient expectations, unfulfilling administrative tasks, long hours, sleepless nights even though we signed up to heal people where our hands are tied. In many situations it's too expensive or there's a lot of misinformation, verbal abuse, physical abuse toward medical staff, including physicians.

Speaker 1: 2:46

At some point you lose yourself. More importantly, I think we start to ask ourselves what is my true purpose. What do I do besides being a physician? I know I asked myself that when I hit burnout the first time, I came home and I was tired, I was irritable. I wanted to be isolated for at least 30 minutes to an hour. I didn't want to interact with any living being, creatures that walked on two or four legs. I really questioned what was my purpose besides being a doctor, being this shell of a person that is working extremely long hours, many sleepless nights, getting cold on my weekends, off from my time off, and a lot of that was lack of boundaries or even me standing my ground.

Speaker 1: 3:34

However, I began to lose myself. I began to lose my identity and purpose, and if this is what a doctor was going to do and be, I did not want to be part of that. I did not want to be part of that all consuming culture of medicine. And with that, I started to grieve. What did I sign up for? What did I get myself into? And I really really had to come to terms with. This is what a physician is nowadays, and it's disheartening, it's saddening, it's heartbreaking, because we're more than lot.

Speaker 1: 4:08

But it was only through going through that process, and here's where the gratitude comes in. I'm grateful for that episode of burnout or moral injury. What I'm grateful for is the fact that I was able to come out the other side rather well, but it took time, took me stepping back and finding a different position and the grass is not always greener on the other side but it did me my needs at that time, and that was. I needed more time to focus on myself, I needed more time for proper sleep, and I recognized that. Otherwise, honestly, I was ready to leave medicine at that point in time in 2016. So I lost my sense of identity and purpose because I no longer wanted to be a physician.

Speaker 1: 4:47

But what else was I going to do? Who was I? And through that journey I found out I'm a daughter, I'm a friend, I'm a colleague and, damn it, I'm a human being that deserves proper sleep, proper nutrition and not to be walked all over, and for that I am grateful, because I realized the complexity of human nature. If you have found this helpful, click, subscribe, share with a friend, because we can all use some camaraderie. And coming up next, we're going to be having an episode on physician entrepreneurship. Not only that, I'm going to bring in Phillip Chan, who is a healthcare professional on his track of becoming a surgeon, but transitioned to entrepreneurship. He's going to share his story and why he did what he did to create the life he wanted to live. And if you're not ready to get tuned, that episode will be dropping on December 20th.