RT Book, Section
A1 Duffy, James D.
A1 Sapire, Kenneth
A1 Chaoul, M. Alejandro
A2 Duffy, James D.
A2 Valentine, Alan D.
SR Print(0)
ID 1125786765
T1 Health Care Professional Stress
T2 MD Anderson Manual of Psychosocial Oncology
YR 2016
FD 2016
PB McGraw-Hill Education
PP New York, NY
SN 9780071624381
LK hemonc.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1125786765
RD 2024/04/19
AB Caring  for  cancer  patients  is  challenging  work.  There  can  be  very  few  professions  that  demand  so  much  of  their  practitioners.  It  is  important  that  we  acknowledge  this  fact.  Every  day  we  are  faced  with  clinical  situations  that  demand  both  our  professional  expertise  and  our  personal  compassion.  All  of  our  patients  are  confronting  a  potentially  life-threatening  disease  that,  together  with  our  intrusive  therapies,  very  often  produces  tormenting  physical  symptoms  and  devastating  psychosocial  repercussions.  Although  our  professional  training  may  have  prepared  us  well  to  master  the  technical  challenges  of  our  work,  our  professional  schools  have  not  prepared  us  to  understand  and  navigate  the  human  dimensions  of  our  work  as  healers.  Each  of  us  has  typically  needed  to  find  our  own  way  through  to  navigating  the  experiential  aspects  of  our  work.  Unfortunately,  recent  research  demonstrates  that  despite  our  best  efforts,  the  task  of  caring  for  cancer  patients  is  exacting  a  substantial  toll  on  our  wellness  and  is  also  negatively  impacting  our  ability  to  provide  optimum  care  for  our  patients.  As  wounded  healers,  we  often  find  ourselves  emotionally  and  physically  deplete  and  therefore  unable  to  meet  the  needs  of  our  patients,  and  ourselves.  In  this  regard,  recent  research  reveals  a  dispirited  profession.  Suicide  rates  for  physicians  are  estimated  to  be  as  high  as  six  times  that  of  the  general  public,  and  17%  of  physicians  reported  their  mental  health  as  fair  or  poor  (more  than  twice  the  national  average)  and  46%  described  their  medical  practice  as  very  or  extremely  stressful.1,2,3