Professionalism in Healthcare: Handling Emotions at Work
Making the case for
Emotional Professionalism
Have you ever felt you had to check your emotions at the door when you walked into the clinic or hospital?
Were you afraid anything less would seem unprofessional?
Let’s challenge the idea that professionalism in healthcare requires abandoning your emotions.
Instead, I’d like to flip the script and suggest that your effectiveness as a healthcare professional depends on acknowledging and feeling your emotions, good and bad.
What Constitutes Professionalism in Healthcare?
The 2002 Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium was a collaborative effort to define professionalism in healthcare. Though written with physicians in mind, its goals apply to all healthcare professionals.
The charter has been endorsed by over 100 medical organizations worldwide and outlines 10 responsibilities for professionalism. They included a commitment to the following:
Patient confidentiality
Maintaining appropriate relations with patients
Improving quality of care
Improving access to care
Just distribution of resources
Scientific knowledge
Maintaining trust by managing conflicts of interest
Professional responsibilities (characterized as working collaboratively to maximize patient care, being respectful of one another, and participating in processes of self-regulation)
Nowhere in this description is a call to leave your heart, your ability to feel, or your humanity at the door.
The Case for Emotional Professionalism
We’ve probably all measured ourselves by the forced ideal of emotionless professionalism at one point or another.
It’s that bully in the corner that says you must always have your game face on and anything else is weakness.
At the very least, it leaves people on both sides of the healthcare equation wanting more. More connection, more significance, and more understanding.
At its worst, it causes harm.
For the skeptics, I’d like to make the case against emotionless professionalism.
Empathy is vital in healthcare. By suppressing your own emotions, you may end up numbing yourself to your colleagues’ and patients’ emotions, too. The result? The people around you feel less heard and cared for.
Additionally, by masking your emotions, you’re hiding parts of yourself. Whether you’re doing it for noble or nefarious reasons, the resultant inauthenticity can be perceived by those around you. It can breed doubt and mistrust.
Finally, all of this suppressing and hiding requires energy on your part. For introverts, that energy could be redirected to more positive aspects of your healthcare role. More importantly, the results of chronically denying your experience can contribute to emotional exhaustion, burnout, and decreased job performance.
Of course, there are times in healthcare when you must present yourself as steady and calm, even when you don’t feel it. But in the scheme of things, we’re all better off when we give ourselves time and space to experience and move through our emotions.
The Power of Emotions in Healthcare
Far from being a weakness, emotions play a vital role in human connection. Healthcare without human connection is not health care. Devoid of emotion, the patient experience is reduced to a transactional one.
Rather than going through the motions of sterile, impersonal interactions, we need emotions to give our relationships depth and meaning.
Giving ourselves permission to connect emotionally with our patients fosters trust and allows us to build rapport more quickly. This is essential in our fast-paced medical culture, especially for patients with chronic or complex medical conditions.
Tuning into the emotions of those around us allows us to listen more deeply and pick up on vital non-verbal cues. The combined effect is more effective communication, increased understanding, and a higher likelihood of positive collaboration.
Excellent patient rapport, skillful communication, and solid clinical skills have the cumulative benefit of enhancing patient care and outcomes. The added benefit is greater patient satisfaction.
That patient experience creates a positive feedback loop through which you experience greater contentment and fulfillment. This contributes to an increased overall sense of purpose and connection to your work and creates positive momentum and motivation.
When we find our success and happiness linked to that of those around us, we’re also more inclined to be more open to other perspectives and take part in ethical decision-making.
Emotional Intelligence in Healthcare
Of course, our emotions can enhance and hinder our performance. That’s why, rather than trying to suppress our emotions, learning to recognize, understand, and manage them is vital. When we do so, our emotions become a key component in how we show up as professionals.
We can use our emotions rather than letting our emotions run the show. You can honor your emotions and remain professional by employing the strategies listed below.
Self-Awareness and Emotional Regulation
Emotional labeling is a mindfulness technique that can be equally helpful for increasing self-awareness and managing emotions. Without judgment, you can notice “I’m feeling sad (or happy, or angry).” Sometimes just noticing can take the edge off a negative emotion.
Emotional check-ins can be combined with labeling. As you notice how you’re feeling, take note of any triggers. “I notice that I feel irritated when my patient doesn’t follow through with the treatment I recommended.”
Journaling can take your awareness a step further by helping you find patterns in your triggers. It may also be a helpful place to start considering how you want to respond to those triggers when they come up. For instance, “I notice when I try to do prior authorizations between patients, I get frustrated, and then I’m distracted while I’m with the next patient, and it takes me longer to complete the exam. Instead, I think I’ll try to batch the prior auths at the end of my morning when I can.”
Mindful breathing is an easy, transportable technique to help calm the nervous system on the fly. A few slow, deep breaths may help move a stuck emotion.
Preempt the emotional toll by caring for yourself outside of work. Your experience of an emotion can be significantly impacted by whether you’re getting adequate sleep, exercise, and nutrition.
Take breaks during the workday. If duty requires you to put your feelings on hold temporarily, be sure to plan time and space to acknowledge what you’re feeling. If you’re having a particularly draining day, give yourself a few minutes to focus on something light-hearted or positive.
Social Awareness and Relationship Management
Active listening can benefit you and the person you’re communicating with by increasing the likelihood of understanding each others’ perspectives and recognizing how emotions might be influencing the conversation.
Employ non-verbal communication strategies to show empathy and understanding. A well-timed pause, direct eye contact, or a touch can sometimes convey what words cannot.
Communicate your boundaries respectfully and clearly. Know your limits and honor them. Whether with colleagues or patients, you get to decide how emotionally available you are in various settings. If you’re emotionally exhausted and need a break, it’s OK to say so.
Be considerate of others’ boundaries. Have strategies in place to support yourself emotionally if there are settings in which it’s not appropriate for you to share your emotions. Demonstrate to others that you also respect and honor their needs and experience.
Lead by example. When you embrace your emotions and welcome the emotions of your patients and colleagues, the benefits can be many. You can model how to effectively manage and express emotions, encourage open communication, and help others prioritize their emotions and well-being.
Emotions are an innate part of the human experience. Denying their existence or suggesting they’re off-limits in healthcare is a disservice to us all.
The next time you feel bullied into tamping down your emotions (whether it’s your own inner critic or an external source), remember your feelings are valid. They’re an important part of shaping who you are as a healthcare professional and influence the type of care you provide. Embrace them, learn from them. Let them help you lead the way to a better healthcare system.
Do you feel too emotional at work and want to learn how to embrace compassionate detachment?
Create calm in the middle of your busy day with my free Mindful Minutes Toolkit.
You can access it for free here.
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Charity is a physician and burnout coach helping introverts in healthcare escape feelings of apathy, irritability, and resentment brought on by the increasing demands and decreasing rewards of medicine.
She uses her 20 years of experience in clinical medicine combined with coaching to help introverts discover ways to be diligent, thoughtful clinicians while prioritizing their needs and protecting their energy. She wants you to know you don’t have to feel guilty for wanting a thriving life inside and outside of medicine.