Managing Through Uncertainty
Dr. Espinoza is a forty year-old hospitalist at a well-known hospital on the West Coast. She has a two-year old daughter, Selena, and her husband works in the financial services sector.
Before the corona virus, she was the team lead. Her colleagues appreciated her leadership. She’s calm, listens well, is a consensus-builder, creates stability for the team. Due to her strong interpersonal skills (even though she’s not a native English speaker) patients and colleagues trust her and appreciate her.
One of the rewards of having these great skills, is that she received more of the challenging patients and families because she could communicate well with them. After her daughter was born and she was getting less sleep, she began to realize her own burnout. She was feeling chronic fatigue and pessimism.
After discussing with her supervisor, they agreed she would take less shifts. She also had to discuss with her husband who was concerned about her decreased income for the family. They agreed that it would be temporary.
She started to feel better. Her in-laws visited from Spain and were staying with them to help with childcare. Things were easing up on Dr. Espinoza.
Then came the corona virus…
The in-laws’ departure date was approaching. Although they loved helping out, they didn’t speak English and began getting anxious about getting home. Dr. Espinoza worried how she and her husband would handle Selena’s childcare when the in-laws left. They had a nanny who could no longer stay due to corona.
Dr. Espinoza started worrying more about her own exposure to patients having COVID-19. She was wondering how to handle her own interactions with her in-laws (aged 75 and in high-risk group).
To her pleasant surprise, some of these worries got addressed without her intervention. For example, the in-laws’ missed out on a deadline to rebook their flights home. At first, they were shaken and anxious. After a time to reflect, they resigned themselves to staying longer to support their granddaughter. In addition, Dr. Espinoza’s work team created policies about which physicians would see COVID-19 patients and which ones wouldn’t. Pregnant women and those physicians with elderly family members in the same home became exempt. Although Dr. Espinoza wanted to be a team player and help her colleagues with the infected patients, she realized this was the best thing for her family at this time. She’ll have plenty of time to continue supporting her team in the near future.
During this period of time, she wanted to create her own protocol for managing through this uncertainty. Here are some of her realizations for self and tips for us. They may not be relevant for all of you, so modify this list to make it meaningful for you. Here’s hers:
It’s OK to not feel OK. This is normal and you’re not alone. There are resources around you for support. It’s ok to admit you have fears.- Remain informed AND limit the amount of information intake. Too little info causes anxiety. Too much info does, too.
- Understand your own safety boundaries. Example: protective gear. Be clear in your own mind about where you stand on that. Discuss concerns with administrative leaders.
- Take care of self. Sleep. Exercise. “Put your own oxygen mask on first.”
- Create a safe, physical-distancing plan for your immediate family in your own house.
- Focus on present joy and meaning AND picture a future, hopeful endpoint when you’re back to a state of stability doing things that give you joy and meaning. Use gratitude.
- Remember the bigger picture. If you must make professional or personal changes now in your lives, remember those changes may not have to be forever. The possible length of a full career may last another 1, 5, 10, 20+ more years. Today’s challenges may just be a blip on the radar in a year from now. You can adjust in 1, 6, 12 or 24 months. Agility.
- If feeling anxious about how long this period of uncertainty will last, remember, it will end. We don’t know when, but it will end. We may not return to yesterday’s normal, but we will return to some sense of normalcy and stability.
- Write a prioritized list of what’s important to you.
- Love wins over fear. Remember key medicine: compassion and empathy for SELF and others.
How would you modify this list for YOU and YOUR family?