"There's only so much she can take. She's human - sometimes people forget that. Simone is human. She has pains like all of us, she has stress like all of us." - Aly Raisman
Naomi Osaka. Simone Biles. There has been such an outpouring of support lately for athletes who put their mental health first. It's a wonderful thing to see.
Yet it just reminds me of how little we have done in medicine to support mental health. How many of you have put in an IV in the middle of your shift for a liter of fluids, because you came to work with gastro or a migraine? How often have you had a horrible SIDS case or terrible trauma that made you breakdown, only to return to work 12 hours later to do it again. How often have you felt like you couldn't possibly go to work and give empathy to others when you yourself were feeling broken, only to find there is no backup, no on call person, and you have to be there or face serious repercussions?
You're human. Sometimes people forget that.
The great thing, though, is that you can change that today. I started my first wellness program by going to the program director and saying, "I'd like to start a wellness program". It was that easy. You can do something today. Whether you're a program director, an attending physician, a resident, a student, a nurse, support staff, you can simply say, "I'm going to improve wellness around here" and then do it.
