Imposter Syndrome or pervasive self doubt is the natural consequence of this constant self flagellation.

Now I'm not saying that we should all stop striving for as close to perfection as humanly possible.  Our profession and our patients, deserves it from us.  What I am saying is that our striving must be balanced with compassion.  Just as the scales of justice balance the concept of support and opposition- that even the truth has many interpretations of it. We too must balance the concept of perfection with self compassion. It sounds so simple doesn't it? At the risk of sounding trite, it actually is.

Burnout for me was essentially the brakes being slammed on in my life. I suffered a series of debilitating panic attacks (which I had never in my life experienced before) and just couldn't even get out my front door. Thinking back now, I can still remember the suffocating feelings of fear and overwhelm. There is almost something comforting to knowing those feelings now. I remember them so well that I know I will never let myself get back to that point again.

I am a good doctor, an empathetic doctor. The sort who listens intently to you and tries to reflect back what I've heard you say with a mixture of comprehension and gentle advice. I've spent the last 15 years either training towards or being a doctor. ​But right now, I am a doctor who feels jaded and empty. Like the 'doctor' light globe inside me has gone out. The weighty responsibility of trying to help people in their darkest hours finally causing my legs to buckle under me. An unfamiliar mixture of panic and despair stopping my whole being from even getting out the door to go into work. To a job I am good at. A job that helps people. A job that (outwardly at least) appears so fulfilling. So why do I feel like this? 

In the last three weeks that I've been hiding from the world since panic set in and stopped me in my tracks, I have come up with a variety of explanations. My amazing GP helpfully offered "Anxiety likely secondary to burnout" as a reason for taking some time off. Seems reasonable. Right now I am incapable of seeing a patient. One, because of what it evokes in me (the afore mentioned fear, dread and panic for the most part). And two, because it is not fair to patients for me to be seeing them right now. There is a certain amount of resilience and strength required to take the worries and ailments of others and help them carry this burden. Have you ever stopped to consider the health (both physical and mental) of your doctor the last time you went to see one? We are all human also. There is no special course at medical school that takes the fleshy vulnerability of humanity away from us. We, like you, sometimes struggle to sleep with worry (which in my case is often about you, my patients). We feel that sickening sense of overwhelm and fear that we may make a mistake while at work. Except in our cases, people lives are the fragile cargo we carry. We also deal with all the behind the scenes issues that everyone else is, family, money, life in general. 

I feel as though I am standing in a doorway. Three weeks ago, all I wanted to do was close the door and hide inside. In the last three weeks, I have found some satisfaction in the fact that I no longer want to do that (everyday at least). Some days I am quite content to remain standing in this open doorway, pondering the space in front of me. 

​I write all this not to garner sympathy, but simply to muse and offer support to those walking a similar path. A silent call into the ether of the internet to encourage those reading to look outside themselves. Consider whether the job they're working, the life they're leading, is congruent with their values and self. And maybe, just maybe, as I stand here in what feels like a doorway of change, waiting to see what path there is in front of me, I may begin to contribute to the world in a way I had never imagined.

By Dr Emily Amos I'm a square peg. I’m a square peg who only very recently realised that I had spent my life trying to squeeze myself into round holes. ​Since burning out, I’ve come to realise that in order to try and fit these round holes, what I had begun to do was shave off my corners. To take away small pieces of myself bit by bit, very slowly, imperceptibly over such a long time that I almost looked like a round peg on the outside by the time I burnt out. I certainly fit in the round hole I had created for myself.

Yet, I was still a square peg.
An unhappy, in-authentic, now piecemeal, square peg.

The things that made me ‘square’ were some of the things that were most valuable to me. My ‘square-ness’ was actually made up of some of the best things about me and it took my candle going out to realise that those were things I really didn’t want to lose.

Because burn out comes from a constellation of events that litter the path away from self awareness.

 There are those who are sick or sore and therefore in need of help or healing, and those that ‘do the job’. ​

​We are no different, and in fact this belief that we are somehow stronger, more capable of healing or better able to navigate health issues, leaves us vulnerable to poorer outcomes and isolation in our struggles.

If you are in the midst of health challenges, whether physical or mental, my encouragement to you is to say so. To share and allow that breaking down of the ‘us and them’ mindset, which ultimately only hurts us. ​