Embracing our most powerful tool as healers: Rest.

"I think we can consider our lives successful, when we can lay down for a single minute without fear, guilt or regret and finally experience freedom."

When I was in my 2nd year of residency training, long before the 80-hour work-week mandates, our chief residents came up with a new idea. The idea was that each week when they sent out email announcements and updates, there would be a new section in the email. This section was called the “Above & Beyond Award of the Week.”

So, let me explain. Each week, one of our 120 resident physicians in our program, who did the most extreme work, would be highlighted in this section and, in turn, receive adoration and praise from their fellow residents, perhaps even an attending or two.

What extreme things were considered, you ask? Staying 6 hours after your 24-hour call ended. Deciding to do two calls back to back. Performing 12 admissions by yourself overnight without asking for help or taking on the complete list of your fellow resident’s patients, because they called out sick (although there was a resident assigned to sick call for that very reason).

By the second week after launching this, the Above and Beyond award was a thing- everyone wondered if their name would be on it.

Only when I was on medical leave for physical therapy after my multiple sclerosis diagnosis did I stop to think about how utterly insane that “award” was.

I realized how damaging it was to praise individuals already working 80 or more hours a week, for running their bodies and minds to exhaustion or never asking for help.

Exhaustion was our definition of excellence. It was used as a way to distinguish us from the general population. We weren’t just residents but superheroes who could take on anything. We didn’t have to eat, drink or sleep because those activities were only necessary for mere humans.

Our value was defined by our work. Who we were as human beings was irrelevant.