By Jen Smith, RN, Australia
I was reflecting and appreciating recently on the fact that how I work with doctors has changed over the last few years. I have nursed for over 25 years and I had never until recently really given myself the opportunity to appreciate what doctors offer and the level of care they have for their patients. I basically viewed them from the perspective of providing a function to patients and I carried out whatever it was that they prescribed.
Early in my nursing career, I struggled with what I perceived was a hierarchy in terms of whose input was valued with patients and I had opinions about what was offered in terms of treatments. As a result I reacted to most of what I saw and decided that I was going to focus my efforts on building a career in natural therapies so that I could leave nursing behind and therefore have very little to do with doctors and what I thought was a limited way of working. I also saw nursing as lesser, with no independence and subservient to medicine.
I saw natural therapies as a way out, a way to being an independent practitioner and independent regarding how I worked with people and a way to seek recognition for the work that “I” was doing.
Studying natural therapies also had an effect on my own health and wellbeing. I thought I could treat myself for anything that cropped up with my own health and that I could avoid seeking healthcare through the mainstream channels. This was never openly taught by the courses I attended, but with the many conversations I had with other students, this was an underlying belief many of them held. I was frustrated with the medical system and had a feeling that we could do much better. I thought that ‘better’ was going to come through the natural therapies I was studying.
Personally, as a result I never had my own GP and I never saw a doctor in over 10 years. Professionally I only ever saw my medical colleagues for what they were not doing and was frustrated by their lack of apparent interest in natural therapies. I continued to work in nursing through this, but continued to work as little as I could. I was there, but didn’t want to be there. So I was engaged as little as possible.
How I am now has completely changed and this was what I was reflecting on recently.
I now work full time in nursing in what most would view as a challenging area of practice and I do not work at all in natural therapies. I am fully engaged in my work and more. I am a long way from where I was only 8 years ago. One of the biggest shifts I am observing is how I am with the doctors that I work with.
My role is community based so I work with quite a number of GP’s and specialists while someone is in our care. I am in constant contact, providing updates when required either over the phone, text messaging or with a letter. What I have come to observe, especially since I have been in this role is the level of care, dedication and commitment that I very clearly see with the doctors that I am in contact with. I very much appreciate the role they play and the relationships they have developed with those in their care.
I listen to patients regularly share about their experiences with their doctors and the level of respect they hold for them, not because they think the doctors are better than them, but because of how they feel being cared for by them and their respective teams. I now see that the quality of this relationship is also medicine for the patient and their family.
What I really love about this shift for me is that I am now seeing doctors for who they are and what they bring to their patients, rather than seeing them for an apparent lack of or what they are not doing or bringing.
What I do know is that this shift has happened within me, it’s not been anything that anybody else has done. I am the one that has changed how I am with myself, how I care for and nurture myself, which has impacted and influenced everything about how I am at work. To me there is no denying this … it’s a fact. For you can’t talk yourself into how you see things in life. This has come from how I am in all that I do.
It has been through the very practical teachings of The Ageless Wisdom presented by Serge Benhayon that has offered me the opportunity to understand life from a much broader and deeper perspective. How I am with myself in every moment, including work makes an enormous difference on every relationship. The relationships I have with doctors are key to the work I do as a nurse and this is such an important partnership in the care of our shared patients. I now know that even though the work we do is different, we complement each other, and the quality of care that we have for ourselves and that which we offer each other can make all the difference in the world.
Read more:
- From Exhaustion and feeling false to feeling vital and truly looking after myself.
- Self care at work makes sense – why is it not common practice?
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
Coming back to read this blog again Jen I was caught by your words
” What I do know is that this shift has happened within me, it’s not been anything that anybody else has done. I am the one that has changed how I am with myself, how I care for and nurture myself, which has impacted and influenced everything about how I am at work. To me there is no denying this … it’s a fact. For you can’t talk yourself into how you see things in life. This has come from how I am in all that I do.”
I have discovered this myself that I have changed, I have made friends with myself rather than being at odds with myself and giving myself a hard time. This has had a huge knock on effect with how I am with everyone else, I have much more understanding of others because I have more understanding of myself.
‘How I am with myself in every moment, including work makes an enormous difference on every relationship.’ This stood out for me as such an important realisation that we affect everything all of the time with how we are with ourselves as this pre-determines the quality in which every movement is made.
I loved reading this article and particularly the description of some patients experience of care in their relationship with their GP. I can relate entirely to spending a large part of my life poo pooing many aspects of formal medical care and favouring alternate therapies and treatments, often to the great detriment and even peril of my basic health. To have gone from that limited and closed off stance, to today fully embracing medicine such that supporting GP clinics is my dedicated vocation of choice is a significant turn around, and one I am very grateful for. The General Practitioners I have had the joy of working with are perhaps rarer in the field, but not entirely unheard of in that they are entirely dedicated to people first and understand that every part of their care offers their patients support, they understand that excellent General Practice is based on quality of relationship across every element of the practice. This care that you highlight in your article Jen is so priceless – and I am very glad to today be a part of the support team for GPs like these. The turning point for me interestingly was attending presentations and workshops with Serge Benhayon who is pro medicine in a very sensible and open way – and I had the opportunity to reevaluate and see more clearly how closed off my prior suspicious and untrusting, almost sceptical stance on mainstream medicine was. Thank goodness or I would certainly not be the amazing caring dedicated professional I am today. I can definitely relate to your similar shift Jen, and so glad you are full time nursing the way you are.
Since meeting Serge Benhayon I have personally shifted so much dead weight in regards to ideals and beliefs that I took on as mine from society. How I am with myself and how I care for myself has change my perspective of how I am with everyone else I meet or have an interaction with. Life is so much richer more vibrant. Who would have thought that just by respecting myself and taking great care of myself could have such a life changing impact on me and all those that I come into contact with. I have changed from being a ‘negative Nancy’ to ‘Miss Positivity’.
Claiming our role, with wisdom and love, dedication, detachment and great doses of self-care, allows us to appreciate all that we bring at work and then, we can also appreciate the same in others
The hierarchy is needed to neatly and efficiently deliver our service in team work, but we are always equal in the love that holds us in the same purpose
Do we allow ourselves to truly see beauty in life or do we focus on the pictures in our head or hurts we have chosen to carry?
How I am with doctors has also changed radically. I used to have a very subservient relationship with anyone in the medical profession. I would sit and speak in a way that conveyed that I was less than whichever doctor or specialist I was seeing. This has changed considerably, as I now feel the person first whereas before I felt the letters after their name first. I am coming to feel that life boils down to alignment, whether we are aligned to our soul or not, and each time any of us becomes anything that we are not already i.e. changes the way that we are with others, for whatever reason then we can’t possibly be in alignment with our soul, because there is nothing in truth that we need to do to align to our soul other than to stay being who we are already.
Once I began to be open and honest with the doctor I realised there was a huge shift in our relationship and this all began with how I was with myself. When I respect myself and my body, health professionals realise that I am working with them and not expecting them to fix my ill way of living.
This is a brilliant point Susan. It is so common for us to seek quick fixes to our ills and we can have expectations that that is the role of a Doctor – and not that we are actually the key agent in the team. Health, wellness and illness are closely affected by lifestyle choices – and these choices are ours alone to make – no magic pill can make us self care.
What you have mentioned here Jen
‘For you can’t talk yourself into how you see things in life.’
Feels similar to you cannot look in the mirror and think yourself beautiful, it just doesn’t seem to work, it is a feeling that comes from within and emanates out.
Without addressing our unhealed hurts and without truly seeing what is going on, we can easily go into reaction and throw the baby out with the bath water (as well as a whole profession and ourselves to boot).
There are so many topics that we slice, dice and cut down and aren’t able to re-visit or open up to. It’s what most of us do most of the time, be it politics, global warming, parenting, vegetarianism, racism, whatever it is we have our very set ideas on and the consciousness that has given us our ideas usually also provides us with an accompanying inability to look at any of those topics differently. Truly looking at something differently has to come from a shift in alignment, otherwise we’re simply looking at something differently but we’re looking at it from the same consciousness. As an example a consciousness might let us change our religion but it won’t let us see religion for what it truly is.
“we complement each other, and the quality of care that we have for ourselves and that which we offer each other can make all the difference in the world.” When we work in harmony with each other there are no limits.
Jen what you have shared makes sense to me, that if we truly take care of ourselves this does have a knock-on effect with everything and everyone around us. I can say this from my own experience, as I now understand that how I am with myself does affect those around me. I was recently traveling with another member of staff and because I love and adore my job they were able to enjoy themselves too and we had so much fun as they allowed themselves to open up by letting down their walls of protection. This double act then had an amazing effect on everyone we met and the fun we were having percolated through to everyone.
“I now see that the quality of this relationship is also medicine for the patient and their family.” I am very blessed by the honest, decent and caring people I encounter in medicine, including my doctors. What I find is they have a genuine love for people, and they have taken such enormous care in their studies to bring medicine to their patients, and now provide the level of support they do in both the knowledge they have and their care for people. When I receive that care, it definitely is deeply touching and has a huge effect on me beyond the function of medicine alone. Two of my doctors have been there with me during a personally intense and challenging period and helped care for both my physical and emotional health treating me like a family member. That level of sincerity and care was very healing for me.
How beautiful to read Melinda. And I can definitely relate on both a person level having had similar experience With my own health care providers, but also working with GPs whose life long dedication is based in a deep committed care for people.
When you put it like this Jen, wow what a difference we bring to life when we are open to what’s true and deeply care for ourselves. For it’s this love we bring to our next interaction with someone else and will be deeply felt whether we like it or not. Considering the impact we have this way is much needed medicine to heal our way of living life.
Being open to what’s true is an alignment, not a way of thinking per se, as in unless we move (movement being the way that we live in all aspects of our lives) in a particular way then it’s simply not possible to be open to what’s true. Sure we can say that we’re a very open person and we can believe that we are, but the fact of the matter is that we’re not because we can’t be.
I used to consider myself to be a very open person and now know that that was simply a thought that was being fed to me by a consciousness that wanted me to remain oblivious to the truth. I have since moved my way out of that alignment to that particular consciousness and over to being aligned to a consciousness that allows me to feel the truth of all things. Am I always able to feel the truth of all things? Nope but I’m much more able than I was before.