Caring for Oneself to Care for Others

It is no secret that physician burnout is at an all time high.  The following passages are taken from the article " Caring for oneself to care for others: physicians and their self-care" by Sandra Sanchez-Reilly, MD, MSc et al. (To read the full article CLICK HERE.)

Clinicians who care for seriously ill patients face a high risk for diminished personal well-being, including burnout, moral distress, and compassion fatigue.


Burnout is defined as a “progressive loss of idealism, energy, and purpose experienced by people in the helping professions as a result of the conditions of their work.” It is further defined by 3 key characteristics:

• physical and emotional exhaustion
• cynicism
• inefficacy.

All physicians can be at risk for burnout as a result of both work and personal characteristics. Work factors include work overload (eg, large patient volumes, insufficient resources, or feeling poorly managed), lack of control over one's work environment, having the bulk of one's time at work spent on tasks inconsistent with one's career goals, and high levels of work-home interference. 


The consequences of burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral distress are profound and range from personal crisis to suboptimal patient care practices.


Given the inadequacy of self-care education for physicians, we must ask how these physicians can be better equipped to face the stresses inherent in the work. Improving physicians' wellness and implementing self-care strategies is a multifactorial process and includes attention to both personal and professional self-care.

Some key strategies to mitigate stress and burnout and promote well-being include:

• Regularly appraise and regulate six areas of work life: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values.
• Create a network of peers and coworkers and stay connected with them on an ongoing basis. Avoid depersonalization (distancing from work both emotionally and cognitively).
• Look for opportunities for engagement with organizational activities congruent with your work and interests.
• Balance empathy and compassion with objectivity. Utilize formalized structures, policies, and procedures to provide guidance with complex or difficult cases.
• Strive to have increased self-awareness, share feelings and responsibilities, set limits to avoid overload of work.
• Adopt a healthy lifestyle with regular exercise, vacations.
• Use recreation, hobbies, exercise to promote life-work balance.
• Practice meaning-based coping by sharing personal and professional sources of meaning and incorporating into daily practice.
• Prioritize personal relationships such as family and close friends.

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It is for these exact reasons (and many more!) that I have created my Restorative Embodiment Retreat. Please consider joining me in Tuscany in October 2025. You can find full retreat details HERE.

Take good care of yourself. You are worth it!
​Dr. Angela