Happy 2021, CCIM! As we enter the new year, this piece on cultivating resilience may offer you new ways to frame your approach to medicine. Especially during the challenging year that was 2020, mindfulness strategies and emotional regulation techniques can help protect against burnout during a public health crisis. Dr. Carter Lebares, a minimally invasive gastrointestinal surgeon at UCSF, shares the benefits of mindfulness and cognitive training in high-stress clinical specialties.
“I was interested in mindfulness long before I came to surgery, but its place in surgery really hit me when I was doing my intern rotation on Trauma. That was the first time I saw sudden uncontrolled bleeding in the OR, and I felt my body push away from that table and freeze. Then, I watched this amazing attending calmly put a finger on the bleeding and go about fixing it. In the midst of all this mayhem, they were so focused and calm. I was like, “What was THAT?!” and I realized it was emotional regulation in action. This is how mindfulness-based cognitive training relates to resilience, because our repertoire of available thoughts and actions expands so marvelously when we’re not just reacting in old, unconscious ways. This affects our personal relationships, how we learn, our ability to collaborate, and how we approach the work we do.”
Read more on the Association of Women Surgeons blog here: https://blog.womensurgeons.org/awschat/mindfulness-cognitive-training/
“I was interested in mindfulness long before I came to surgery, but its place in surgery really hit me when I was doing my intern rotation on Trauma. That was the first time I saw sudden uncontrolled bleeding in the OR, and I felt my body push away from that table and freeze. Then, I watched this amazing attending calmly put a finger on the bleeding and go about fixing it. In the midst of all this mayhem, they were so focused and calm. I was like, “What was THAT?!” and I realized it was emotional regulation in action. This is how mindfulness-based cognitive training relates to resilience, because our repertoire of available thoughts and actions expands so marvelously when we’re not just reacting in old, unconscious ways. This affects our personal relationships, how we learn, our ability to collaborate, and how we approach the work we do.”
Read more on the Association of Women Surgeons blog here: https://blog.womensurgeons.org/awschat/mindfulness-cognitive-training/