If you are already working in medicine or thinking of making the change to this field, then I applaud you! It is an essential service and a challenging choice, although it can be hugely rewarding as well. However, like any job, sometimes in medicine we find ourselves not quite in the place that we would like to be in our career. Luckily, if this applies to you read on for some advice on how you can resuscitate your career below.
Deal with your stress
One of the most significant problems for those working in the medical profession is stress. In fact, for some, the pressure can get so bad that they seriously consider coming out of medicine altogether.
These pressures include dealing with life or death situations, dealing with the emotional state of the family, and the patients, as well as listening to complaints, and having a great deal of responsibility for someone’s well being. However, there are ways to better deal with the emotional challenges of working as a doctor or nurse and manage your own stress.
In particular, making time for physical workouts is a tool that many in the medical profession use to deal with their stress on a regular basis. After all vigorous physical activity, means allows you to rid your body of toxins and tensions, as well as release endorphins that will positively affect mood.
Other tactics for coping with such a stressful job include practising meditation or mindfulness. This is a strategy that allows an individual to accept all the problematic thoughts and feeling that come with such a stressful situation. It also allows them not to fuse with these thoughts, and so believe they have to act in line with the all of the time.
Lastly, a robust support network can be hugely useful in dealing with the stresses and strains of working in the medical field. This network may be made of up members or your family, or it may be centred around work, where you colleges have a degree of empathy for what you are experiencing. With that in mind, if your career is floundering because of stress, if there are any support groups offered at work, it is a great idea to use them.
Study for advancement
Next to help your medical career recover why not consider further study? Yes, I know you probably had to do a lot of that to get to where you are in the first place, but look at it this way, at least you know you are good at this skill!
Also, if you pick the right course, such as an online MSN MBA program, you will be able to conveniently fit your study around your shifts, current role, and family responsibilities. In fact, medicine is one of the best careers for advancement and career change opportunities because once you are in you only have to study the field in which you want to move to, and once you are qualified you can usually find relevant work. To that end, consider exploring a new field to boost your flagging medical career.
Improve your memory
Medical folks need to have a fantastic memory, and if you are struggling to remember all that training, along with the medical terminology, how to perform procedures, or even whether you have released the right dosage for your patients it can undoubtedly encumber your career as well as make you genuinely miserable at work.
Luckily, memory is something that we can learn to develop throughout our life. In fact studies of the brain have shown learning new skills that change the way the mind works through neuroplasticity can occur at any age. This is of course great news for anyone in the medical profession because they can learn to have a better memory to improve their career.
Regarding specific tactics for improving memory, you can try something like using Mnemonics to remember long, confusing drug names or even list of symptoms for particular conditions. Visual learners can benefit from creating a drawing or mind map of critical things to remember too.
There are even some more ‘off the wall’ techniques such as using a mind palace ala Sherlock Holmes. Alternatively, you can take some tips from famous memory experts of our time and create a story to help you jog your memory at work.
Learn to forgive and let go
Lastly, if you medical career seems to be stalling it may be because you are having trouble forgiving and letting go. However, this is a crucial skill for success and happiness in the medical field for the following reasons.
The first reason is that there is a strange working structure between nurses and doctors that means while they are both highly qualified individuals working together for the well-being of the patient, they can find themselves in conflict with each other.
The unequal power relationship here can also make a working relationship between the two roles demanding if both are not committed to forgiving, letting things go and not taking stuff personally on a day to day basis.
In a similar vein, patients and their families, and as many are in a vulnerable position when ill; they can quickly forget themselves and end up taking their emotions out on the medical staff. Without forgiveness, and the ability to not take things to hear this is a situation that can quickly make a career in the medical field at least unpleasant, and at worst unsuccessful. Something that means it is a skill that must be learnt like any other.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly in the medical field is your career suffering because you are not forgiving yourself and letting go of mistakes? After all, they do happen from time to time no matter how good you are at your job. Therefore learning to accept this as part of the role, and how to forgive yourself when problems do occur can help you stop say a great deal more happy in your work. Something that will them help you to progress and enjoy your career in medicine to a much greater extent.
