Why Providers Need Doctors Too: The Importance of Maintaining a Doctor-Patient Relationship
Image courtesy of Priscilla Du Preez via Unsplash.
We are facing some serious (and fairly long-term) isolation right now—I’m sure you feel it too. We’re exercising less, eating more, and experiencing more extreme levels of anxiety, depression, and uncertainty.
And I’m not talking about just the general public.
Healthcare providers and practitioners are under enormous amounts of mental stress. Caring for patients who are struggling, while maintaining safety protocols, donning masks for entire shifts, and balancing the anxiety of “what’s next?” is casting a shadow over everyday life. And that’s on top of the extra stress of taking care of patients who are extra stressed, while being extra stressed ourselves.
On one hand, this makes self-care incredibly important. On the other hand, self-care has its limitations—and providers need professional support too.
As providers, it’s easy to feel that we should know how to take care of ourselves and our own health (“doctor, heal thy self” being the common mantra that it is). It can be a source of shame if some element of our own health is failing us.
But it’s not about what you do or don’t know, or how good of a provider you are to others. How many times have you had a conversation with a friend and given them the exact same piece of advice that you, yourself needed to hear? How many times has a friend given you advice that made you think “Well, duh! Of course I should do that. Why didn’t I think of that?!”
Sometimes truths are inconvenient, messy, or downright devastating. You might often not see the things that you don’t want to see; it’s the most common form of bias in the human mind—cognitive dissonance. And that’s why providers need doctors too.
These kinds of mental blind spots always remind me of a line from the movie Now You See Me: “The closer you look, the less you see.”
The Importance of Maintaining a Regular Relationship With Your Physician
It’s well studied that positive doctor-patient relationships can be as beneficial to good health outcomes as some treatments themselves. You know it from working with your patients—the engaged patients who build a team of providers, and see you regularly are the ones who often have the most success.
Why? Because providers can spot patterns before patients do (even if the patient is a provider themselves!). That’s our job.
It’s incredibly difficult to observe your own patterns. Having a trained eye provide an outside perspective can shine a light on the things you might miss on your own. You live in your body, in your life, in your everyday world. A fresh observer can help connect the dots you might not even know are there.
That doesn’t mean you’re a “bad” provider. It means that healthcare is a team sport—and you need teammates for your health too.
Consider Adding a Chiropractor, Acupuncturist, or Other Holistic Practitioner to Your Team
There’s a reason integrative medicine is on the rise in the United States. Looking at the whole person, and noticing the subtle shifts in the complicated web that is the human body, is linked to improved patient outcomes.
Holistic providers, which includes chiropractors, acupuncturists, massage therapists, and certain types of medical physicians, are trained to observe the interactions of the body as a whole. Conventional providers are more often trained to diagnose major or acute disorders, while super-specialists hone in mostly on conditions within their own area of focus. Many holistic providers have extra training in connecting the dots between seemingly obscure or unrelated signs and symptoms.
Adding a chiropractor, acupuncturist, or other holistic, integrative practitioner can help you catch dysfunction early—and treat it with a whole-body approach.
Physical Contact From Trusted People Is Incredibly Important
Another huge benefit of consulting with a chiropractor, acupuncturist, and/or massage therapist is that physical contact is built into care.
Physical touch from a trusted person is proven to boost levels of several of your feel-good hormones, including Oxytocin (the connection hormone), Serotonin (the calm contentment hormone), and Dopamine (the success-high hormone). It also stimulates your parasympathetic (rest, digest, and reproduce) nervous system, which calms your cardiovascular system, reduces your stress hormone levels, and promotes healing in all areas of your health.
The summary? It’s all connected. Physical touch, be it chiropractic work, massage, or acupuncture, can have a positive impact on your stress levels and your overall health, even before other treatments are administered.
It’s especially important right now, in a time of isolation and restrictions around social distancing. That’s where bodyworkers can step in—we’re taking extra special precautions to make our interactions as safe as possible, while providing the care you need.
Pick a “Quarterback” Practitioner
When you’re seeking out help from other practitioners, make sure to choose one who is going to be the quarterback on your healthcare team. You see them regularly (think at least every other month - this allows you to spot small, simple patterns before they turn into big, complicated ones), and they know you, your history, your personality, your story. They can help you synthesize the opinions you get from other providers and recommend treatment plans for your long-term care, including other services that might be beneficial to your overall health.
One major caveat for healthcare providers—your healthcare quarterback should not be your spouse, your best friend, or your co-worker. Family members and friends (even if they’re healthcare professionals themselves) may know you more intimately and see more of your patterns, but they often have the same distortion effect to their opinions that you do. This is amplified by the fact that your patterns can influence their life and become personal in nature.
This is the Care I Specialize In
The “quarterback” position used to be the role of the General Practitioner medical doctor (and can be, if you’ve found a good one with a private practice!). Unfortunately the current structure of major medical facilities and insurance companies makes this kind of personalized, long-term provider-patient relationship difficult to achieve. The system isn’t set up to treat patients as individuals—it’s set up to tend to the median, and provide regimented care.
I prefer to take the old-school view of creating a healthcare team that supports you on your journey. I can help you sort through information you’re getting from your own research and your other providers to put together the best overall care strategy for you, as a practitioner yourself.
The hardest problem you will ever face is the one staring you down right now. Everything looks easier in hindsight (or when it’s someone else’s problem, which providers themselves can empathize with!). You deserve to be cared for by great providers as much as your patients do. Reach out if you want me on your team!