Keep the fire burning, but don’t let it burn you

Hello everyone! I hope that within the past 3 months, all of you had a wonderful experience, and you had been healthier than before.

So, our article today is sort of a story time from me to you my lovely readers. The reason why I could not post a health article in the previous months was because a lot was happening in my life. Basically, my old noodle, which is my brain, could not cope with the demands of life, and had shut down completely a part of my life which revolved around writing health blogs. But hey, I am back again and this time, I will also be writing some articles that will be in the Filipino language so that plenty of my patient’s will be able to understand the articles better.

Anyway, just a brief overview on what happened, I had added some clinic schedule in my private practice here in the Philippines. Since I am a starting internist, my census for patients isn’t that high yet, hence I must allot more clinic times so that my patient census may increase someday. Since I added some clinic times, I had to make sure that I stick to that schedule first so that I could ROI my clinic rentals, and patients will know my clinic schedules. Majority of my clinic schedules have very low census initially, that is why I must add more clinic hours to which in turn decreased my free time - that is why I wasn’t able to add more health blogs. Another reason why I started discontinuing posting health blogs is because a small number of people are only reading my articles. To be frank, I was saddened and disheartened because there were only a few readers. That is why I’m writing this article, to tackle a sensitive issue about mental health and burn out.

Burn out for me personally is giving your best effort but had rendered the least amount of positive output. Overtime, this will cause mental fatigue, especially when motivation runs out. But I have realized that yes, we do need motivation, but nothing beats being disciplined. Being disciplined means doing what you must do in times that you have no energy, or you are not excited about that activity. Unfortunately, burn out had won me over. It felt like whenever I’m trying to write an article, nothing comes to mind, it just produces more anxiety and stress because it feels too much of a burden. My mind says, “just rest, watch TV or indulge in social media, YOU REALLY DON’T HAVE TO CREATE AN ARTICLE SINCE NO ONE WILL READ”. For a few weeks, this had been on my mind, then weeks became months. The website had gone silent. But today feels different, and I wanted to write an article what I had been through.

For the past years, I had undergone a gruesome training to become an internist which means rendering a cycle of duty tours in the hospital that consisted of pre-duty where you work for 8 hours, then go home only to render your duty status which is a 24 hour stay in the hospital. To make things worse, you will have to render an additional 8 hours of from duty. In total, we trainees render almost 80 hours per week in the hospital. And to be a fully pledged internist, you must undergo 3 years of residency training. Not to mention if you would engage in taking up sub specialization which would eat another 2 to 3 years of your life. Because of residency training, I had developed grit. This made me resilient and felt that hard work should be glorified. It was instilled in my psyche that to be successful, you must work hard to the point of burning out, because if not, you will never achieve your dreams and vision. I thought that after being a diplomate in internal medicine, I would just go to the clinic and patients would come flying at me leading to a luxurious lifestyle. But was I very wrong.

After passing the diplomate examination in internal medicine, I had to work in a government hospital to pay my monthly bills. This was done on top of my private clinic hours. Most of the time, after rendering a 24-hour tour of duty in the government hospital, I must go to the clinic right after my duty to see my private patients. Unfortunately, when I step into my clinic during my private practice schedules, there were no appointments, nor walk in patients. For many months, this had happened, I had to work almost 100 hours per week so that I could pay my monthly bills and aim to increase my patient census in my private clinics. The dream that I had when I was a wee medical student was crushed, not because I was rendering more working hours when I was a resident physician in training, but because there were no patient in my clinic – only an empty room, a silent air and a book in my hand to pass my time. It was hard, because I adored my mentors during my residency training, they all had plenty of patient lines waiting for them in the clinic. But here I am, I was the one waiting for the patients to come to me. And it didn’t help that I was the first doctor in the family - I had no private practice to inherit. Residency training will teach you how to be the best doctor, but it will not teach you how to overcome the mental fatigue when your clinic is empty and filled with silence. But what I developed really helped me, I had grit. Even in days that there were no appointments, no walk-ins – I would still show up to the clinic hoping that a patients will be decked under my service. Probably, it was more than 3 months of continued showing up that I developed traction in some of my clinics. And fortunately, now, I can say that some patients do trust me and follow-up in my clinic - they sometimes make some referrals as well. But most of the days, I still wait in the clinic for a patient to come. Someday, I do hope that I can render more service to more patients, not for income - but because every patient that I see in the clinic, they have stories and experiences that mold me and help me to become a better person – and that development is far more treasured than their monetary payment. I develop deep happiness when a patient follows-up and they had clinically improved, or some admitted patients are discharged better and healthier than before.

So, for those who are experiencing their lowest lows, always remember, there’s no other way than up. Just continue showing up, just continued rendering the best service that you can. It may not be in the health care sector like I am, and you may have a different aspect of work/employment, but just continue to show up. Our time will come one day, and we will look at our first steps as nothing but an experience that shaped us to be the best that we can. Work hard – keep the fire burning, but don’t let the fire burn you out!

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