This month Whole Hearted Medicine is so proud to be able to say that we are one of a handful of Victorian state finalists in the Telstra Best of Business Awards for the area of Outstanding Growth. This recognition comes after a process of many rounds of applications, interviews and business reviews and is one that we are all extremely grateful to now be able to share with with world. The growth that we have experienced over the last 4 years since establishing Whole Hearted Medicine is very much reflective of a fact that we knew to be true when we started this journey- that doctors as much as everyone, deserve support, education and guidance in nurturing their own wellbeing in this often incredibly demanding profession.
That just because we support the wellbeing of others, doesn’t mean that we ourselves as providers of that care don’t also need that same support.
The fact that year upon year as our retreat offerings have grown in size and number, we have continued to sell out our events and receive the acclaim and feedback from attendees to say how useful and transformative their experiences have been has never been taken for granted. Our ongoing commitment to educational excellence demonstrated by our widely accredited curriculum and recognition from various specialty colleges is a testament to our desire to continue to lead the way in embedding wellbeing education into the Continuing Professional Development framework for doctors. This months recognition by Telstra Small Business feels humbling but also very validating as we walk this path of trying to change the culture within medicine & healthcare of seemingly forgetting that behind every practitioner is a person first and foremost- and that as people, we all find wellbeing an often difficult to master concept.
Doctor wellbeing has rightly become a topic of hot conversation in recent years as the shadow left by the COVID-19 pandemic shifts to reveal significant levels of burnout amongst our profession. The data will soon begin to fully capture what those of us working within healthcare already knew to be true- that there can be a significant personal toll upon the wellbeing of those who care for the wellbeing of others. The fact that medicine has not historically had any embedded and widely accepted educational processes to support doctors in maintaining their wellbeing in this often demanding profession is a testament to the fact that #doctorwellbeing is often more of a ‘nice to have but not crucial’ element of workforce planning. When compared with the areas of psychology and psychiatry, where provider wellbeing is seen as paramount to their ability to provide good care to their patients, it is a glaringly obvious failure that all doctors are not better supported through out their professional lifetimes to manage and prioritise their own wellbeing.
What we as an organisation have witnessed in our path to challenge this status quo within medicine and healthcare is a surprising amount of push back from within our own profession to this. The most common resistance we see is from workplaces that claim the elements of our educational retreats such as practicing self compassion, building self awareness and mastering the elements of lifestyle medicine that are foundational aspects of self care such as healthy eating, optimising sleep, mindful movement and fostering connection in life are not in fact professional development but rather are personal development and thus refuse their staff access to their CME funding or study leave. This is despite the fact that we hold accreditation from as many speciality colleges as currently possible for pre-accreditation for outside CPD providers with the recognition that our educational curriculum meets all criteria and is professionally relevant to the practice of their fellows.
Herein lies the depth of our gratitude to Telstra Small Business with this most recent recognition for Whole Hearted Medicine and the work we do. We are so grateful to have been given the chance to pause and reflect on the journey of the last few years both from a business perspective, but also from a philosophical perspective. Once again clarifying our mission and desire to challenge the deeply held culture within medicine and healthcare that it is possible to separate out the professional from the person. Behind each and every dedicated healthcare professional is a person who is caring, diligent and deserving of support to navigate the often difficult interface between illness and wellness that makes up our entire profession.
Wellbeing is an often cited term that it is difficult to define, but what we see time and time again our our educational retreats and in our interactions with doctors is that wellbeing is the ability to skilfully navigate life at the interface between patient and practitioner.
Dr Emily Amos- Founder of Whole Hearted Medicine
We live and work at the coalface of humanity, if the wellbeing of those who do this work isn’t seen as a workforce priority and crucial to their professional efficacy then what is?
If you are an organisation that is searching for ways to better support the wellbeing of your medical workforce then please get in touch. Whole Hearted Medicine is committed to our goal of supporting our profession to be more proactive in our approach to doctor wellbeing, in not waiting for burnout to be the catalyst for change but instead in creating a profession that embraces the humanity of its people and nurtures it as the vital tool for professional efficacy that it is.