Recapturing the soul of medicine

Abstract

Doctors need to reclaim meaning in their working lives. In the past 10 years, the culture of medicine has changed radically. For example, in California, a study of 454 clinicians by the Sacramento Medical Society indicated that most had felt the effects of these changes deeply 1 Forty per cent of those interviewed were clinically depressed. Most reported that they had thought about leaving the profession at least once in the past 12 months. Even more surprising, many would not want their children to go into medicine nor would they choose medicine as a career again. The ba, a human headed bird, represented the soul in Egyptian mythology This is not a California phenomenon. An unprecedented number of doctors worldwide, many of them young, are dropping out or seeking early retirement. Something unusual is happening among doctors, and those who care about doctors' wellbeing may need to broaden their concern from the care of impaired doctors to the care of all doctors. The future of our profession may be at stake. There is reason to believe that our professionalismour traditional professional stance, our attitudes, self expectations, and indeed our training-has made us par. ticularly vulnerable to the kind of stress we currently experience. Year after year in medical schools across the country, the first year class enters filled with a sense of privilege and excitement about becoming doctors. Four years later, this excitement has given way to cynicism and numbness. By graduation, students seem to have learnt what they have come to do but forgotten why. In these times, …