Carrie 2 is a family physician who worries that she is letting people down. She recalls a conversation with her physiotherapist who encouraged her to dramatically reduce her workload.
Transcript
I was so proud of myself and I looked at him and I said, “I’ve reduced my hours, so I’m only seeing patients for seven hours.” And he’s so good. He looked at me and he said, “That’s really good. I’m glad that you’re doing that.” And he said, “But I want to put this to you. You booking seven hours of patients – I know that that means you come in probably an hour early and you stay an hour late and you drive to and from work – that’s not how we manage chronic illness and I don’t think it’s going to get better.” And I was really proud because I used to be in the office 10 to 12 hours a day … I felt ashamed that I can’t do more. It’s really hard because every single time we needed something during the pandemic I was there – so when my hospital was in a crisis I went to the ICU. When we needed people to be separated – we couldn’t see the symptomatic patients with the asymptomatic patients – we started a COVID Clinic and I worked there. And now that there’s been an aspiration for us to help out, we’ve started a Pediatric Respiratory Clinic. And I have to say, “No.” And every time I see those emails and I have to say, “No,” I think, “Maybe I can.” But then I can’t because how can I take care of my patients then? I can’t. I just cannot do this.
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