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Keep breathing and have a great rest of your day,
Dike
Dike Drummond MD
www.TheHappyMD.com
[Transcript]
Physicians Unchained: Retirement Mastery for Doctors – Weekly Tip
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My new book Physicians Unchained: Retirement Mastery for Doctors launching in ApriL The NEW ROADMAP to Stick the Landing on this Life of Purpose
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The Physician's First Prime Directive.
Introduction
Hello, Dr Dike Drummond here with the latest lesson from my new book, Physicians Unchained Retirement Mastery for Doctors. Today, we're going to talk about the first of health care's two prime directives.
The First Prime Directive
This is a code of conduct, an inviolable code of conduct. It's installed in all doctors on day one, you walk through the pearly gates of medical school, bam, and it goes dead center down the middle of your head, and it's called the patient comes.
Go ahead and say it, the patient comes first. The patient comes first.
That's the first of healthcare's prime directives.
A Universally Accepted Rule
And interestingly enough, everybody accepts it.
Doctors say, yeah, I put the patient first. Society says, yes, doctors put the patients first. Everybody is united in that message, doctors put the patient first.
A Question From a Burnout Coach
Let me ask you this question, and again, remember, I am a seasoned physician burnout coach, okay. I've dealt with burned out doctors for 15 years now, helped tens of thousands of them recognize and recover from burnout.
So from that perspective, let me ask you this question.
Can the patient come first 24/7, 365, and you have any hope of being a normal human being?
And of course the answer is no.
The Missing Off Switch
Because what wasn't given to us at any point in our training was the off switch to the patient comes first.
Wouldn't it be nice if there was a card punch at the door exiting from your practice where you punch the card, check out of your practice, flip a switch in the back of your head, off goes the patient comes first, and you can put yourself first?
But that's not how it works.
The Cost of “Patient Comes First”
And over time, patient comes first causes us to systematically deny our own self care needs, systematically not take vacations, time off, lunch breaks, even go to the bathroom when we want to.
We're taught that in medical school.
Hey, patient comes first. What's wrong with you? You're not putting the patient first? Come on, buck up.
Burnout and Depletion
By the way, I'll talk about the second prime directive of healthcare in next week's video.
And what ends up happening over time is depletion.
It sounds like dedication. It ends up being depletion.
And if you look for the last half a dozen years, the prevalence of burnout in surveys of physicians has hovered right around 50 percent, meaning on any given day, 50 percent of the doctors on shift that day are suffering from symptomatic burnout.
Now they won't admit it, because that would be not putting the patient first, right.
You can't claim anything for yourself if the patient comes first.
How It Blocks Retirement
And interestingly enough, imagine this.
If you're contemplating stepping away from your practice, as in like retirement, you might get some heat from the prime directive that would block you from doing that simply and easily too.
As a matter of fact, the first prime directive and the second one—we'll talk about that next time.
The prime directives of medicine are the primary causes of burnout and the primary causes in a very similar way to the struggle that is the act of retirement for a physician at the end of a long and successful career.
Recognizing It Was Installed
So I encourage you right now to recognize that the patient comes first is not a law of nature.
It was installed in you through our medical education and the expectations of our larger society.
It's not a permanent condition of your existence.
It's a professional operating principle that has a beginning and an end.
The Off Switch Appears
And here, towards the end of your career, as the off switch on the patient comes first appears visible to you, actually is something you can throw.
It becomes an option.
And it's not because you don't care anymore about your patients. It's not because they don't matter.
It's because the time for this obligation has passed.
Your Turn
You put in your shift.
You've worked so hard to be here.
You definitely held up your end of the bargain, and ever since medical school you have put the patient first.
And now guess what?
It's your turn.
Your turn.
No shame, no guilt.
Writing Your Finest Chapter
It's a hard earned ability to take back the pen that writes your life and write your finest chapter here in the years between the end of your practice and the end of your life, in your life after medicine.
Closing
That's it for today.
If you're seeing me on social media, you're not on my early bird list.
Watch for some place on this page or in the comment below where you can sign up for the list, and I'll send you one of these lessons once a week.
And also you'll be one of the first people to know when the book is available for purchase in late April.
Keep being the light worker that's you paying it forward.
Keep breathing.
I'll see you in the next video.