The Gift of Professional Relationship
What if the greatest secret to promoting health is readily available to every practitioner? What if the practitioner can open to the powerful potential of healing for both themselves and the patient? While it is true that every practitioner has access to this potential, we cannot forget that this is a time where caregivers are feeling overworked, not appreciated and suffering from burnout defining the very nature of healthcare today. It is difficult being around people daily, who are dealing with life threatening illnesses and debilitating physical and emotional pain. Included in this conglomerate of work stress, caregivers also attend to the demands of personal lives and the uncertainty of world events.
It is important to challenge these factors that make our work in healthcare well… more like work. Because of the nature of health care today, we have abandoned the idea that we could feel the deep satisfaction and adventure that beckoned us when
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we decided this is what we will do with our life. We responded to the call and did something that we thought had meaning and provided value. Instilled with a sense of purpose, we embraced our dreams and embarked to help the ill and dying. So what happened? Why do we feel exhausted? Why is the health care practitioner a field of work that has the highest career burnout around? A healthcare practitioner lasts only 5 years in the field before burnout symptoms appear. Is there a way that staff and clinicians can care for themselves while increasing their ability to provide exceptional care for their patients?
The key to providing care for self and patients resides in what we do every day, relating to others. Attending to our process of relating can unlock who it is that shows up to work to experience the day with freedom, happiness and fulfillment while assisting in the healing process of the patient. Within the caregivers interpersonal relationship with the patient lies the power to reconnect the caregiver to living a fulfilling career, increasing their growth spiritually, emotionally and psychologically; while at the same time providing a curative element for the patient.
Elizabeth Taylor once spoke of the time she was visiting a hospice in England during the onset of AIDS when people thought the transmission of the disease was airborne. AIDS patients were isolated and left to face the horrors of their illness alone. Elizabeth asked one young man what could she do to help and he replied, "Give me a hug". She responded by giving each AIDS patient in the hospice a hug. It started her second
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