September 3, 2010
(DOCTOR)
Dean
College of Medicine – West Visayas State University
Thru: (DOCTOR)
Clinical Clerk Coordinator
West Visayas State University Medical Center
Dear Doctor,
I write to apply for a LEAVE OF ABSENCE, to rest, effective today, until December 31, 2010. May I also please ask for your permission to assume hospital duty by January 1, 2011 to make up for the remaining hours that I will not be able to serve during this Leave. Hopefully, I could complete all my requirements and graduate in April to begin PGI on May, 2011.
May I offer two reasons for this application:
1. Despite the many satisfactions and great learning in medical school and hospital training, my physical state of exhaustion is also exacting a toll on my general well-being. The problems of sleep deprivation and stress in 80 or more hours a week in the hospital, with duty-shifts of 24-36 hours, is leading me to a mechanical state and warped lifestyle that is no longer, me. Before it gets to be really problematic, I urgently need to sleep and rest for just a while. I need to gather re-newed energy again which I believe can be obtained from claiming some time and space for a break....to relax in a stress free situation.
“Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.”
(Don’t Quit)
2. It has been an exciting time. Much energy had been spent in learning the science of medicine these past 4 years. Perhaps, amidst “managing” patients and “surviving” hospital training culture, I miss out on “the art of healing” – the comforting or caring dimension of healing...the spiritual dimension of this profession. The focus on sharply defined physiological problems has trained me to control or ignore my natural reactions to commonly encountered scenarious in the ER, OR, Floors, ICU, NICU, etc. resulting to the capacity to remain cool, calm, and detached, no matter how desperate a crisis may be. Now, I experience that some deep part of me feels numbed. If I am to proceed with inner health, I need to return to my natural bearings of recovering my idealism and belief that healing has both physical and spiritual dimensions. I need to recover my original motive for helping the sick. My original vocational inspiration have been neglected, ravaged by the heat of training. I want to rediscover the root of my sacred vocation as a healer. For this, I need time for a Retreat. I would like to discern the spiritual impact of my experiences in medical training. I am sure to find God’s deep affirmation and broadening of my personal and professional life.
“it is not the nature of the task, but its consecration that is the vital thing”
(Martin Buber)
The desire to become a doctor is still definitely very strong. Please know that I gave time and stretched through this fatigue-state for some months, hoping it would just pass as a phase. However, it would not let up. I consulted many people and finally decided, with the support of my parents, to take the four-month leave. I look forward to a rejuvinated and animated come-back-to duty by January and resume my training with all its rigors and stressful conditions.
Thank you for your understanding and kind support.
Sincerely,
Socorro Marie – Eugenie C. Baga
Clinical Clerk
Conferred by:
Cynthia C. Baga Oscar T. Baga
(Mother) (Father)
Noted By:
(DOCTOR)
Office of Student Affairs
College of Medicine - WVSU
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
The Pathophysiology of Compassion Exhaustion and the Duality of Understanding as a Gift and Curse
This is the case of a 25 year old clinical clerk undergoing clinical duty in a public hospital. Through a series of events, she decided to take a leave of absence with the reason of “Compassion Fatigue” 2 months prior to graduation. With no psychiatric cause or management provided for the leave, this move was considered both unorthodox and impractical by the medical community. However, they were given no choice as the clerk was clearly adamant that she needed to go on this leave.
The Complaints I never made
As a clinical clerk, there’s no denying the long working hours and that the lack of sleep is inevitable. We go On Duty from 7:30 am to 5 pm, have a 2 hour break for dinner and showers then come back from 7 pm to 5 am of the following day. Then, again followed by a two-hour break to shower, have breakfast and to prepare for endorsements or whatever things that were left un done for this next day – our From Duty day which goes from 7 am to 5 pm. The following day is our On Call day which again goes from 7:30 am to 5 pm.
However, it is not the long sleepless hours that get to us. It’s the constant nagging and comparison that nurses, residents and doctors tell us that we are blessed to have two-hour breaks in between our 24 -duty hours as opposed to previous years or what they call “their time” that there were no breaks given to clerks. This two hour break is also the source of great animosity when clerks cannot finish their assigned tasks. We often hear: “There’s no excuse for unfinished paperwork because you have two-hour breaks…” or “Good for you, you have two-hour breaks, during our time, we had none and we had to finish everything.”
Whenever I hear these things, I think about two things. First, from what I’ve seen so far from the two batches that I’ve had the pleasure of going on duty with was that the inability to finish paperwork or any other task came from the clerk’s innate capacity for hard work or the lack of it. No matter how long or how short the breaks are, if a clerk procrastinates or is lazy, paperwork and other tasks will still be left undone. This is the reason why some clerks end up with lesser demerits than others, because they are more hard working and have more time management skills compared to others. Moreover, whenever that issue of the two-hour break surfaces, I say to myself “Isn’t it time that the medical practice develop more humane working conditions? Then, why all the fuzz and clamor about wanting to be able to eat and shower?” For a long time, in a public hospital such as ours clerks and interns on duty would only eat for more than 12 hours and could not shower for more than 36 hours. If we belonged to another reality, we could easily file for labor suits, given that clerks and interns are also not compensated. In fact, clerks pay tuition to be trained in the hospital – and with that it is also part of the package of the training that we pay for are the conditions of seeing more patients, learning more, and not being able to eat or shower. Sometimes, because we are too engrossed with being heroes and being life savers that we forget basic human rights.
From the United States, to Europe and the Philippines, I am at awe with the silent war going on between nurses and doctors. I understand that the two professions work hand in hand in saving lives and alleviating dis-ease but why such hostility?
Perhaps because I do my clerkship in a hospital with a long list of traditions and practices that were tested through time, I have to face certain realities that were the product of history. For instance, it is common knowledge that once we enter the halls of our hospital, we become the lowest beings in the planet. We are subject to being shouted at by nurses, aids and janitors. They can do pretty much anything to us like make us monitor, give medication and clean up after our patients if they find themselves too busy combing their hair, talking on the phone or eating. I was even more shocked to know that the reason that why we can be shouted at and scolded publicly for no reason at all is because clerkship is the only time all the other people can do this to us. They say that if we become doctors, the tables will turn and we will be the ones to do those things to all the other people in the hospital. Now, where did this come from? Who started this war? Was it the doctors of old with enormous temper tantrums that led to the wrath of the nurses towards the clerks? Or was it inefficient nurses who warranted scolding from the doctors with enormous temper tantrums that led to the wrath of the nurses towards the clerks? It’s like the chicken and egg riddle, as to which one came first.
Moreover, it is not only the nurses, aids and janitors who seem to have the right to publicly humiliate us. They may have only followed the example of some power tripping residents and consultants.
For example, during bedside rounds, when asked about particular details about our history and physical exam of our patients and if we couldn’t answer, they’d tell us – “Is that all that you know? You reached this level without knowing that?!” In the eyes of our patients, we see apparent distrust toward us such that the next time we examine them and ask them, they become more hesitant and non-compliant because they perceive us as incompetent. As a result, we get scolded again because certain procedures or certain information will require the resident to actually go to the patient and for that particular resident to do it because the patient will no longer allow the clerk to do so.
Another reality about going on duty in a public hospital is the scarcity of resources. For trauma patients, we practice what is known as the Robinhood practice. Basically, it is stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Whenever there are patients who have more medicines, more plasters, more gloves, more resources, whatever is not used, we save them so that if there are emergency patients who have no money to buy these things, we can give them something, actually anything just to get them by. We are also confronted by the reality that despite our best efforts, there are still some patients who think they can come into the hospital and everything is free because they are sick and needy. It’s like when fathers and mothers complain that they have no money to buy medication and they get mad because the hospital cannot provide free medication when they are actually smokers and chronic alcoholics and that if only they had cut down on their vices, they will be able to buy the proper medicines for their children or the proper food and nutrition so that they won’t get sick.
Loneliness
These working conditions were bearable for me as I coursed through the first 6 months of clerkship. I admit it was also hard but because I had someone special to inspire and motivate me, to hold my hand and tell me everything was going to be alright, I pressed on with courage. It was during the preparations for graduation that I felt I was not just about to lose the love of my life, but the batch that I belonged to as well. My original classmates would be graduating while I was to remain for another 6 months. Knowing that a new batch would be joining us – the irregulars gave me much anxiety because first, I didn’t know them, second, I didn’t know how they worked and third, I had lost my dutymates – those people who knew the inner working of my heart, my frustrations and joys.
To make matters worse, the love of my life would be moving unto PGIship thousands of miles away. Only those in long distance relationships could comprehend the stress, the anxiety and the loneliness of such as relationship.
When they all left, I felt alone. It was a loneliness so deep I thought I was going into depression. It was a constant throbbing heartache not to see, hear and touch the one person that brought color and meaning to your life for the past 4 years. It was unbearable not to be able to receive a call or even a text for hours and hours not knowing what was going on with him. I counted three months of sleepless nights, shed tears and lost energy and vigor. I went from being much in love to being much hurt by his absence. It was a terrible shift from being alive to being dead.
Pride and Prejudice
To add insult to injury, the political atmosphere in the hospital didn’t help at all. A select few of the new clerks were making waves in influencing hospital policies that made a lot of people angry. PGIs especially, my former batchmates were beginning a raid of hostility and I soon got bored of going out with them hearing nothing but complaints about the new system and the new clerks. It was a batch thing that grew into so much more fueled by pride and prejudice and I was caught in the middle of it. Clerks were also now responding to some PGIs and the endless backbiting on both sides began. It got to point that I wanted friends that had nothing to do with medicine or the medical practice to avoid the brewing conflict.
The Duality of Understanding as Gift and Curse
With all the things going on, I never really ranted out how I felt about my state. I kept believing that I understood all the circumstances and that there were far better things to care about – up to the extent that I could not care for anything at all anymore.
I remembered saying to myself that all these things and realities that were happening around me were a product or a result of something. I tried to understand where the doctors were coming from when they compared the duty hours. That they belonged to a time and era where everything was much simplier, lesser distractions, fewer patient populations and more time to study and learn and it’s as if we, our generation in our utmost incompetence were the source of the highest anxiety and frustration where actually some of them were simply experiencing the crossroads of a midlife crisis or the bitterness of a questioning life story. I understand how doctors who are so severe grow up to be that way when the only life they ever knew was patients, medications, operations, medical conferences, trips abroad and making money and in the end still ask the questions like; “is this all there is to life?” Surely someone in that state would harbor some form of bitterness.
I also understood where the nurses were coming from. From generation to generation of clerks and doctors who have walked these halls, how many of those showed signs of thanks, gratitude and appreciation to them? Most of them worked there for more than 10 years and still, they are the ones carrying out the work and very little of them get promoted into being chief nurse.
Surely someone in that kind of state could have some form of frustration that is vented out at the object that represents all that frustration – the clerks. I also understand where our residents are coming from. I understood that those who liked to publicly humiliate us, were they themselves victim of a public humiliation or because it was how they were taught and forced to learn, in effect it is the only way they know how to teach as well. The tougher ones have a much deeper insecurity issue that had left their ego scarred that I theorize drove them into dehumanizing other so that they can feel superior even for just a while to compensate. But, that’s just me… I tend to understand and find reasons to sincerely accept that this harsh reality we are in is only the result and that people are also enslaved from where they are coming from and that their unconscious manifestations are the ones that hurt us.
I thought because I had the gift of understanding, the ability to let things go and to simply and sincerely accept people and situations as a result of an “unperfect world” that I already forgave years ago, I would be alright. I thought that understanding was a gift that I had and that because I recognized it, I was the one would adjust.
However, understanding the world and accepting all its imperfections was not only bold, it was also arrogant and impossible and this became my curse. I forgot that I was human too. I forgot that I also felt hurt whenever I was publicly criticized. I forgot that I too had needs like sleep and food. When I was bagging a premature infant who eventually succumb, I thought to myself that I had lost sleep, but this father had lost a son! – How understanding of me, how compassionate to understand the plight of the father! How arrogant of me to think such! I had become full of myself into thinking everything was alright!
From I Understand to I don’t Care
It was like a dark overwhelming power had seized me. I swung from a deep sense of compassion and understanding to a deep sense of not caring anymore because I eventually grew tired of caring. It is the classic STAR WARS metaphor for turning into the dark side. It is when I believed so much that I was cut out for this line of work that I began to lose myself in it, in its perks and the power that came along with it. I lost myself into thinking I could care so much for others and that I could neglect myself. Who am I to think such? I am no saint. I also lost myself into the daily grind of the work that I do – because I was “doctor”, this was a noble profession and I could get away with other stuff because of the reverence the MD suffix in the name could bring. It became a career instead of a vocation, a source of pride instead of a source of humility. I felt indestructible and that’s when I grew tired the most!
My growing apathy was hitting my hard in all directions. I lost the fervor of faith, in going to mass and seeking spiritual advice. It was taking a toll in my relationship with my boyfriend, sometimes making me lazy to text or call or nourishing the relationship which needed a lot because of the distance. I was distancing myself from true friends and engaging in drinking binges and other unhealthy activities. These coping mechanisms were a desperate attempt to recover what was true and good that was lost in the chilliness of indifference. I desired the fire and the passion to once again feel, but my medical work and training has had me using my head for so long I forgot how to feel.
Chronological Story of Reasons for waking up
In the morning of September 1, 2010 I woke up remembered the different reasons why I would get up in the morning to go for duty through the different months. At first in November up to February, I woke up for my patients, to do their daily progress checks, dress their wounds and check for bleeding, check for a fetal heartbeat. By March and April, I was waking up because my boyfriend was inspiring me, with all the things he had accomplish, finishing clerkship and getting his MD at last. By June and July I would wake up because I had too, so that I would have less demerits and absences to cover once I started to pay for them as graduation grew nearer. By August, I was waking up because I could learn something new, a new disease, I new method for examining, a new “aha” moment – moments that didn’t come, moments that flew by, moments I took for granted.
And, so as I decided on whether I would get up on that faithful day of September, I asked myself; “I wonder when will be the time that I could wake up and go for myself?” Not for others, not for grades or demerits, not for frustrated learning experiences but for the shear joy and deep desire to do what I love, a love that had been forgotten.
It’s Actually Compassion Exhaustion
That morning I went back to sleep in my bed because I could not find the reason to get out of bed I was looking for. After two hours, I opened my eyes and decided to inquire about my leave of absence, the requirements and the process and this was the first time I felt alive again in a long time. I guess that day I got out of bed for myself afterall – the reason: Compassion fatigue. No! Compassion Exhaustion!
The Complaints I never made
As a clinical clerk, there’s no denying the long working hours and that the lack of sleep is inevitable. We go On Duty from 7:30 am to 5 pm, have a 2 hour break for dinner and showers then come back from 7 pm to 5 am of the following day. Then, again followed by a two-hour break to shower, have breakfast and to prepare for endorsements or whatever things that were left un done for this next day – our From Duty day which goes from 7 am to 5 pm. The following day is our On Call day which again goes from 7:30 am to 5 pm.
However, it is not the long sleepless hours that get to us. It’s the constant nagging and comparison that nurses, residents and doctors tell us that we are blessed to have two-hour breaks in between our 24 -duty hours as opposed to previous years or what they call “their time” that there were no breaks given to clerks. This two hour break is also the source of great animosity when clerks cannot finish their assigned tasks. We often hear: “There’s no excuse for unfinished paperwork because you have two-hour breaks…” or “Good for you, you have two-hour breaks, during our time, we had none and we had to finish everything.”
Whenever I hear these things, I think about two things. First, from what I’ve seen so far from the two batches that I’ve had the pleasure of going on duty with was that the inability to finish paperwork or any other task came from the clerk’s innate capacity for hard work or the lack of it. No matter how long or how short the breaks are, if a clerk procrastinates or is lazy, paperwork and other tasks will still be left undone. This is the reason why some clerks end up with lesser demerits than others, because they are more hard working and have more time management skills compared to others. Moreover, whenever that issue of the two-hour break surfaces, I say to myself “Isn’t it time that the medical practice develop more humane working conditions? Then, why all the fuzz and clamor about wanting to be able to eat and shower?” For a long time, in a public hospital such as ours clerks and interns on duty would only eat for more than 12 hours and could not shower for more than 36 hours. If we belonged to another reality, we could easily file for labor suits, given that clerks and interns are also not compensated. In fact, clerks pay tuition to be trained in the hospital – and with that it is also part of the package of the training that we pay for are the conditions of seeing more patients, learning more, and not being able to eat or shower. Sometimes, because we are too engrossed with being heroes and being life savers that we forget basic human rights.
From the United States, to Europe and the Philippines, I am at awe with the silent war going on between nurses and doctors. I understand that the two professions work hand in hand in saving lives and alleviating dis-ease but why such hostility?
Perhaps because I do my clerkship in a hospital with a long list of traditions and practices that were tested through time, I have to face certain realities that were the product of history. For instance, it is common knowledge that once we enter the halls of our hospital, we become the lowest beings in the planet. We are subject to being shouted at by nurses, aids and janitors. They can do pretty much anything to us like make us monitor, give medication and clean up after our patients if they find themselves too busy combing their hair, talking on the phone or eating. I was even more shocked to know that the reason that why we can be shouted at and scolded publicly for no reason at all is because clerkship is the only time all the other people can do this to us. They say that if we become doctors, the tables will turn and we will be the ones to do those things to all the other people in the hospital. Now, where did this come from? Who started this war? Was it the doctors of old with enormous temper tantrums that led to the wrath of the nurses towards the clerks? Or was it inefficient nurses who warranted scolding from the doctors with enormous temper tantrums that led to the wrath of the nurses towards the clerks? It’s like the chicken and egg riddle, as to which one came first.
Moreover, it is not only the nurses, aids and janitors who seem to have the right to publicly humiliate us. They may have only followed the example of some power tripping residents and consultants.
For example, during bedside rounds, when asked about particular details about our history and physical exam of our patients and if we couldn’t answer, they’d tell us – “Is that all that you know? You reached this level without knowing that?!” In the eyes of our patients, we see apparent distrust toward us such that the next time we examine them and ask them, they become more hesitant and non-compliant because they perceive us as incompetent. As a result, we get scolded again because certain procedures or certain information will require the resident to actually go to the patient and for that particular resident to do it because the patient will no longer allow the clerk to do so.
Another reality about going on duty in a public hospital is the scarcity of resources. For trauma patients, we practice what is known as the Robinhood practice. Basically, it is stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Whenever there are patients who have more medicines, more plasters, more gloves, more resources, whatever is not used, we save them so that if there are emergency patients who have no money to buy these things, we can give them something, actually anything just to get them by. We are also confronted by the reality that despite our best efforts, there are still some patients who think they can come into the hospital and everything is free because they are sick and needy. It’s like when fathers and mothers complain that they have no money to buy medication and they get mad because the hospital cannot provide free medication when they are actually smokers and chronic alcoholics and that if only they had cut down on their vices, they will be able to buy the proper medicines for their children or the proper food and nutrition so that they won’t get sick.
Loneliness
These working conditions were bearable for me as I coursed through the first 6 months of clerkship. I admit it was also hard but because I had someone special to inspire and motivate me, to hold my hand and tell me everything was going to be alright, I pressed on with courage. It was during the preparations for graduation that I felt I was not just about to lose the love of my life, but the batch that I belonged to as well. My original classmates would be graduating while I was to remain for another 6 months. Knowing that a new batch would be joining us – the irregulars gave me much anxiety because first, I didn’t know them, second, I didn’t know how they worked and third, I had lost my dutymates – those people who knew the inner working of my heart, my frustrations and joys.
To make matters worse, the love of my life would be moving unto PGIship thousands of miles away. Only those in long distance relationships could comprehend the stress, the anxiety and the loneliness of such as relationship.
When they all left, I felt alone. It was a loneliness so deep I thought I was going into depression. It was a constant throbbing heartache not to see, hear and touch the one person that brought color and meaning to your life for the past 4 years. It was unbearable not to be able to receive a call or even a text for hours and hours not knowing what was going on with him. I counted three months of sleepless nights, shed tears and lost energy and vigor. I went from being much in love to being much hurt by his absence. It was a terrible shift from being alive to being dead.
Pride and Prejudice
To add insult to injury, the political atmosphere in the hospital didn’t help at all. A select few of the new clerks were making waves in influencing hospital policies that made a lot of people angry. PGIs especially, my former batchmates were beginning a raid of hostility and I soon got bored of going out with them hearing nothing but complaints about the new system and the new clerks. It was a batch thing that grew into so much more fueled by pride and prejudice and I was caught in the middle of it. Clerks were also now responding to some PGIs and the endless backbiting on both sides began. It got to point that I wanted friends that had nothing to do with medicine or the medical practice to avoid the brewing conflict.
The Duality of Understanding as Gift and Curse
With all the things going on, I never really ranted out how I felt about my state. I kept believing that I understood all the circumstances and that there were far better things to care about – up to the extent that I could not care for anything at all anymore.
I remembered saying to myself that all these things and realities that were happening around me were a product or a result of something. I tried to understand where the doctors were coming from when they compared the duty hours. That they belonged to a time and era where everything was much simplier, lesser distractions, fewer patient populations and more time to study and learn and it’s as if we, our generation in our utmost incompetence were the source of the highest anxiety and frustration where actually some of them were simply experiencing the crossroads of a midlife crisis or the bitterness of a questioning life story. I understand how doctors who are so severe grow up to be that way when the only life they ever knew was patients, medications, operations, medical conferences, trips abroad and making money and in the end still ask the questions like; “is this all there is to life?” Surely someone in that state would harbor some form of bitterness.
I also understood where the nurses were coming from. From generation to generation of clerks and doctors who have walked these halls, how many of those showed signs of thanks, gratitude and appreciation to them? Most of them worked there for more than 10 years and still, they are the ones carrying out the work and very little of them get promoted into being chief nurse.
Surely someone in that kind of state could have some form of frustration that is vented out at the object that represents all that frustration – the clerks. I also understand where our residents are coming from. I understood that those who liked to publicly humiliate us, were they themselves victim of a public humiliation or because it was how they were taught and forced to learn, in effect it is the only way they know how to teach as well. The tougher ones have a much deeper insecurity issue that had left their ego scarred that I theorize drove them into dehumanizing other so that they can feel superior even for just a while to compensate. But, that’s just me… I tend to understand and find reasons to sincerely accept that this harsh reality we are in is only the result and that people are also enslaved from where they are coming from and that their unconscious manifestations are the ones that hurt us.
I thought because I had the gift of understanding, the ability to let things go and to simply and sincerely accept people and situations as a result of an “unperfect world” that I already forgave years ago, I would be alright. I thought that understanding was a gift that I had and that because I recognized it, I was the one would adjust.
However, understanding the world and accepting all its imperfections was not only bold, it was also arrogant and impossible and this became my curse. I forgot that I was human too. I forgot that I also felt hurt whenever I was publicly criticized. I forgot that I too had needs like sleep and food. When I was bagging a premature infant who eventually succumb, I thought to myself that I had lost sleep, but this father had lost a son! – How understanding of me, how compassionate to understand the plight of the father! How arrogant of me to think such! I had become full of myself into thinking everything was alright!
From I Understand to I don’t Care
It was like a dark overwhelming power had seized me. I swung from a deep sense of compassion and understanding to a deep sense of not caring anymore because I eventually grew tired of caring. It is the classic STAR WARS metaphor for turning into the dark side. It is when I believed so much that I was cut out for this line of work that I began to lose myself in it, in its perks and the power that came along with it. I lost myself into thinking I could care so much for others and that I could neglect myself. Who am I to think such? I am no saint. I also lost myself into the daily grind of the work that I do – because I was “doctor”, this was a noble profession and I could get away with other stuff because of the reverence the MD suffix in the name could bring. It became a career instead of a vocation, a source of pride instead of a source of humility. I felt indestructible and that’s when I grew tired the most!
My growing apathy was hitting my hard in all directions. I lost the fervor of faith, in going to mass and seeking spiritual advice. It was taking a toll in my relationship with my boyfriend, sometimes making me lazy to text or call or nourishing the relationship which needed a lot because of the distance. I was distancing myself from true friends and engaging in drinking binges and other unhealthy activities. These coping mechanisms were a desperate attempt to recover what was true and good that was lost in the chilliness of indifference. I desired the fire and the passion to once again feel, but my medical work and training has had me using my head for so long I forgot how to feel.
Chronological Story of Reasons for waking up
In the morning of September 1, 2010 I woke up remembered the different reasons why I would get up in the morning to go for duty through the different months. At first in November up to February, I woke up for my patients, to do their daily progress checks, dress their wounds and check for bleeding, check for a fetal heartbeat. By March and April, I was waking up because my boyfriend was inspiring me, with all the things he had accomplish, finishing clerkship and getting his MD at last. By June and July I would wake up because I had too, so that I would have less demerits and absences to cover once I started to pay for them as graduation grew nearer. By August, I was waking up because I could learn something new, a new disease, I new method for examining, a new “aha” moment – moments that didn’t come, moments that flew by, moments I took for granted.
And, so as I decided on whether I would get up on that faithful day of September, I asked myself; “I wonder when will be the time that I could wake up and go for myself?” Not for others, not for grades or demerits, not for frustrated learning experiences but for the shear joy and deep desire to do what I love, a love that had been forgotten.
It’s Actually Compassion Exhaustion
That morning I went back to sleep in my bed because I could not find the reason to get out of bed I was looking for. After two hours, I opened my eyes and decided to inquire about my leave of absence, the requirements and the process and this was the first time I felt alive again in a long time. I guess that day I got out of bed for myself afterall – the reason: Compassion fatigue. No! Compassion Exhaustion!
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