You are never alone

Surrounded by my colleagues at ANZAN, I immediately felt overwhelmed. Look at all of these doctors, young and old, chatting cheerfully, laughing and acting like Neurology is the passion of their life. Tired, burnt out and struggling to imagine myself as a neurologist, or as anything really, and following an election that left me gutted, I couldn’t bring myself up to chatting with influential Professors with my “good behaviour” on.

We all put on a facade at work, which we think others want to see. A facade of energy, enthusiasm and competence. For some this comes naturally, for others sometimes or always, this is an immense struggle. Paradoxically, this facade makes it harder for doctors, who struggle, to seek help. Conversations around mental illness and burn out occurred despite the underlying culture of fear that admitting to these struggles would be used against you. We put up with bullying and at times, inhumane conditions for a career. How hard it must be for those of us who work this hard for so long, then turn around and walk away?

Talking to friends away from the bright lights of sponsorship stalls showed me that many of us struggle silently. Many of my friends admit burn out. Others had periods in their career where they considered quitting and becoming something else altogether! An anthropologist! A model! An artist! The statistics show that this is common. The growth of sites like Creative Careers in Medicine, show that there are many of us who leave the well trodden path. We are discouraged from taking gap years, yet more and more of us take them and I haven’t yet heard someone come back regretting it. (Of course, many of us have responsibilities and cannot do this).

If you feel alone, please reach out.

Find a friend away from the bright lights and sycophancy. Sometimes official supervisors are less than helpful. If so, find someone you relate to. If the rise of unwieldy facebook groups has taught me anything, it is that there are such a wide variety of doctors and people out there.

In the words of Florence Welch, in trying times, we must “hold onto each other”.