Dear Caregiver…

You dedicated your professional life to caring for others. To earn your place, you trained for years and invested lots of money and time. You made countless personal sacrifices along the way. You practiced over and over. You developed mastery over many techniques.

This is the science of health care.

But let’s not forget about the humanity of health care too.

You did all of those things because you cared and wanted to help others in their time of need. You developed those skills to help alleviate pain and suffering and to improve patients’ quality of life. You chose your professional path to answer a higher calling.

But let’s be honest; Working with sick people all day every day and inside complex organizations that sometimes get in your way is hard. Very hard. And the price you pay isn’t cheap. The emotional and physical demands on caregivers can be overwhelming.

So how can you cope? How can you thrive? How can you keep that flame burning inside of you without burning yourself out?

Start everyday with a brief meditation on why you went into caregiving in the first place.
Recall a moment when you made a difference
Picture the face of gratitude on a patient you helped comfort
Feel the satisfaction you felt when you helped your first patient (and the scores since then!)
Think about who will be there for you when you one day will need that same help

Attitude and frame of mind are critical to our wellness. We may not be able to control all aspects of our lives, but we certainly can control our attitudes. And one thing is for sure – if we start the day with the right attitude and we refocus ourselves throughout the day to maintain that attitude, we will have a very good chance at overcoming whatever challenge comes our way.

You deserve it!

Your patients thank you.

Humanity thanks you.

Thank you!

PS. Please share some of your own tricks for overcoming the challenges and keeping the passion alive.