“Don’t feel ashamed. You are not alone”. A letter to empathic, ‘slower‘ NHS GPs.

Dear friend,

I know it’s tough right now.

And you may feel that you are the only person who leaves late.

You may feel defective, like there is something wrong with you.

You may feel frustrated working within a system that rewards sterile performance markers of health rather than empathy, trust and compassion with patients.

You may feel ashamed that you cannot see as many patients or do as much paperwork as your colleagues in your practice. 

That you are letting people down. That you’re not a “team player”. 

And you might feel that your worth is based on volume of work rather than quality.

You might get praise from your patients but still feel sad that you’re somehow not ‘getting it right’.

You might be afraid to become a partner or even a salaried GP because of these feelings.

You may be a locum GP but are now fighting for jobs that require you to see 16-18 patients in 3 hours regardless of complexity

You might be considering leaving medicine all together because of the strain.

But you got into medicine and general practice for a reason because you love building relationships, you love helping people and you know that just treating superficial symptoms that belie deeper problems isn’t working.

So you can’t leave but you can’t stay like this.

All I can say to you is..

You’re not alone. 

I feel the same way. And many more do too.

Primary care is a tough business right now for someone who values building relationships and getting things right without rushing.

But your skills are valuable.

You are trying your best.

It’s not you, it’s the system.

Realistically there should be a separate clinic for ‘slower GPs’ to thrive with 20-30 minute appointments for the most complex patients who choose to see us over our colleagues.

I have 2 pieces of advice:

1) If you are burnt out, depressed, anxious or otherwise get professional help from the Practitioner Health Program. If you are suicidal get urgent help now. If you think you have ADHD, dyslexia or another diagnosis slowing you down then seek assessment.

2) Don’t add the weight of shame to an already stressful situation.

You are not alone in this. You are not defective. You are human. You care. And you are working within your values.

Don’t kick yourself when you’re down, no matter how tempting that is.

For the longest time I did just this and I suffered in silence. I felt I was defective, idiotic and a let-down. I found my answers in therapy but the underlying message was this..

Show the kindness to yourself that you show others. 

Accept yourself with compassionate before trying to adapt to a broken system.

Finally, let’s speak up to push forward a new agenda for what is valued in general practice.

And let’s see being slower as our strength rather than our shame.

Take care of yourself,

Tom 

(Fellow ‘Slower’ GP)

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What compassionate advice would you add to this letter?