It is a known fact that stress is bad for health and health care specialists often tell their patients to reduce stress in their lives. Nonetheless, sometimes they don’t listen to their own advice. Some people say that the problem is partly caused by medical schools not offering stress-reduction and meditation training.
Sad Truth
According to the studies, about 20%-60% of all medical specialists experience burnout at some point of their careers. High levels of stress can have negative effects on the medical care offered and it also decreases the compassion and empathy showed towards the patients.
Relaxation and Meditation
According to the studies conducted in the field, relaxation techniques and mindfulness meditation can help improve the effects of stress on doctor’s daily lives. Each stress management program is meant to decrease physical and mental wear resulting from stress.
Introducing New Techniques
In one case relaxation and meditation techniques have been introduced in the curriculum of future doctors. The goal was to familiarize the doctors with the benefic effects of these techniques that are often recommended to patients. In the same time such techniques can decrease the chances of a burnout and they can enhance the doctors’ performance by improving their empathy and memory and by eliminating professional anxiety.
ARAM
In this case ARAM has been used during the third year of the family medicine clerkship. Based on the feedback that the researchers got from the students, 90% of the pupils found the techniques beneficial. It is a known fact that it is stressful to work to become a doctor even for the most talented students. This is why it might be important for the medical schools to introduce into their curriculum stress management, to avoid the burnout of the future doctors.
Bright Outlooks
The truth is that there are several medical schools where such studies have been performed and more and more schools decide to adopt classes of this kind. Maybe it would be a good idea to make it an optional class so that only those students would take it who are truly interested without the feeling of being forced of doing something that they don’t really want to.
Not only doctors should think about relaxation techniques, but other health care providers as well, such as nurses because their job isn’t any less stressful and they could certainly benefit from techniques of this kind, but it is important for them to be open-minded.
