PHYSICIAN WELLNESS
Putting the ‘We’ in Wellness BY JULIE ÇELEBI, MD
H
“
AS YOUR WELLNESS
improved, worsened, or stayed the same since before the pandemic?” I was amazed to hear that the vast majority of faculty colleagues I interviewed from my department reported that their wellness had been maintained or actually improved. After much study and reflection on this topic, I have come to a simple conclusion — we can do hard things, if we do it together. As wellness director for my department, I completely empathize with the fact that even the word “wellness” can be a trigger for some. When we are sub-
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jected to chronic distress, i.e., overwork in understaffed environments, societal mistrust and disinformation, a seemingly never-ending pandemic existence … many understandably feel it is shortsighted and misplaced to focus on physician wellbeing as its own entity. “It’s not a me problem, it’s a system problem.” But I would argue that it’s both. If you are feeling so unwell that you can’t advocate for yourself and what you need, you are at risk of stagnation and for some, their very lives are at risk. I often tell my patients struggling with emotional distress, we can’t always change what is happening around us, but we can change
how we respond to it. This is just as true for those of us struggling to find work-life integration in the practice of medicine. This isn’t a charge to be more resilient in the face of moral injury. It is a challenge to explore a paradigm shift that might promise a new way forward. Really what I’m talking about here is building a culture of wellness from the ground up. It does not minimize the need for systemic change where it is needed, but it can empower individuals to forge a path from surviving to — dare I say it? — thriving. This is beyond the basic inventory of physiological and safety needs from Maslow’s hierarchy (it goes