Weekly Wellness 10/21/2020

"You can't pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first"

A resident once asked me a wellness question. She said, "How do you find time to take breaks on shift, to reset yourself and recharge?". It threw me off. Because the answer is simply, I take breaks. I take breaks whenever I need to.

As I thought more about it, I realized I felt the same way in residency. Because nobody told me that I could take breaks. That I should take breaks. That I deserve to take breaks. That I NEED to take breaks.

Somehow in the ER, we have set a new unwell norm of working to maximum capacity at all times. For ourselves and for our patients, we need to take breaks.