HCTL #006: Self-Sacrifice Won't Make You a Better Doctor with Dr. Susie Muir

Yeah, to be honest, I still find it strange to think that I am, you know, starting to get my message out there, and it's really exciting.

I am still working almost full-time clinically in palliative care at the moment, and have been building all of this on the side, I suppose, for the last two or three years.

But in, in honesty, I think it really started a long, long time before that with all the thoughts that were swirling around in my head.

So my hope is that eventually I'll be able to change the breakdown of my week so that I'm still doing a bit of clinical, but able to do this a lot more.

Yes.

Wow.

Now question without notice, because I, I can't let that go untouched, that you are already a full-time clinician.

You're doing amazing, important, but also recognizing that it's hard work in palliative care.

What's driving you to then, instead of sitting on the couch and having a glass of wine, you're there creating materials and putting things together? Tell me about that underlying driver of, what's fired you up to, to create these materials?

Thanks, Megan.

I'd love to chat about that.

I think since the start of my career, which is 20 years ago this year, I have really believed that we've got it a bit backwards in healthcare, and this notion that doctors and healthcare professionals should just give, give, give everything to their patients without any regard for themself, I think has really contributed to the culture that we're in, which is self-sacrifice, endurance, we're all fine, we don't need support.

And my belief is that that's changing.

I think that people are starting to recognize that those things, the self-sacrifice and the endurance, can be really damaging to ourselves, to our families, even potentially to our patients.

Things like burnout are getting a lot more, uh, air time in the media, and people are talking about physical and mental ill health, and all the ramifications of a supposed chronic lack of caring for ourself.

So I've had that belief right from the start, but I've never really felt able to talk about it, because people were like, "Oh, well, that's just weird.

Just get on with it," kind of thing.

So I've been really excited that in the last few years there is an increasing focus on that.

And I think that coupled with my work in palliative care, which for the last nine years is really a daily reminder of this precious thing that we call life, and the fact that we only get one of them, I then thought, "Right, this is something I wanna be part of." And so I find it so energizing to sit and work on all of this in my evenings when I can, because I honestly believe it's essential to support people in health to care for themselves, and to be able to, I suppose, learn and understand the really intentional strategies that people can implement, that they can have this deeply fulfilling career, this rich personal life.

Um, so yeah, I just love it.

It, it...

I find it so energizing, and that's what keeps me going.

I think if you chase the things that bring you energy, then you can, you know, just really do that a lot.

[laughs]

Oh, so good.