Supporting the Mental Wellness of Physicians | Caroline Elton, PhD

For all the deeply rewarding moments medicine offers, it is also a profession often intensely challenging on both systemic and personal levels. Our guest in this episode is Caroline Elton, PhD, an occupational psychologist who has devoted her career to counseling doctors and medical trainees in the National Health Service and various medical schools in the UK. She is the author of Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors, which discusses the physical, mental, and emotional toll of medical training and practice. Among other issues, she writes about how doctors deal with guilt and shame, gender and racial discrimination in health care training, the erosion of the clinician-patient relationship in modern medicine, and how clinicians can build emotional resilience. Over the course of our conversation, Dr. Elton shares what led her to this work, exposes the many shortcomings in how doctors are trained today, and explores how we can create a more humane path forward.In this episode, you will hear about:What led Dr. Elton to her unique work in counseling physicians - 2:04Reflections on both the compassion and the callousness Dr. Elton witnessed as she observed physicians (her patients) in their working environments - 10:01A review of medical training in the UK versus the US - 15:16A discussion of Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors and the concept of moral injury - 19:51The kinds of patients Dr. Elton sees in her present work - 25:00How institutional cultures can come to valorize toxic, brutal expectations placed on physicians - 27:03How Dr. Elton’s managed her first patient, a doctor who was planning on quitting medicine just weeks after beginning her postgraduate training - 32:49A discussion of how sexism and other forms of bigotry factors into burnout - 38:20Why the screening process for selecting future doctors should be improved - 43:37How a trainee can prepare themselves for the psychological demands of a medical career - 48:00Advice to administrators and executives of how best to serve the psychological demands of their medical workforce - 50:34Dr. Caroline Elton is the author of Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors.Visit our website www.TheDoctorsArt.com where you can find transcripts of all episodes.If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our show, available for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you know of a doctor, patient, or anyone working in health care who would love to explore meaning in medicine with us on the show, feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments or send an email to [email protected] The Doctor’s Art Podcast 2023