Wellbeing

Rusty Carroll reflects on the eighteen months after completing therapy for PTSD. In this personal account, he describes returning to clinical work, rebuilding physical wellbeing and reconsidering professional identity, showing how recovery continued through everyday choices and a different relationship with work.

Must a new year begin with a plan to reinvent yourself? Liz Crowe reflects on resolutions, motivation and wellbeing, exploring small achievable changes, self-compassion and gratitude. Her account challenges all-or-nothing thinking and asks whether our goals reflect what we actually value.

Natalie May concludes her reflections on the 2018 FemInEM Ideas Exchange with talks about burnout, parenthood and the systems surrounding clinical work. The report also explores research in Tanzania, health advocacy, equity and the challenge of misinformation about women’s health.

When does belonging to a specialty become a barrier to working together? Based on an EMTA 2018 presentation, this post explores tribalism, stereotypes and how we interpret colleagues’ actions. It suggests practical ways to build relationships across teams and return difficult conversations to a shared concern for patients.

Does describing clinical work as ‘sexy’ matter? In this FemInEM Ideas Exchange 2018 talk, Natalie May challenges the language of medicine through gender stereotypes, colleagues’ experiences and patients’ perspectives. She also reflects on the social media response and how curiosity and respectful conversation can help us reconsider familiar words.

In the third part of his personal account of PTSD, Rusty Carroll describes his experience of eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy. He reflects on waiting for treatment, the emotional demands of therapy and the changes that helped him rebuild his wellbeing.