Remember that turkey sandwich that was flung back in your face? After shift, think of the person who spent their time making hundreds of those sandwiches, which are free of charge, for your patients. It’s amazing that someone provides these comforts—turkey sandwiches, warm blankets—that allow us to do what many of us went into medicine for: care for patients. When you think of that person who made the sandwiches, the comfort some patients receive from these simple gestures, that turkey sandwich may just not seem that contentious anymore.

Think of the team after shift. The senior nurse who was the key lead in a resuscitation when you were occupied with a crash femoral central line. The security personnel who kept you and the team safe during a violent interaction with an intoxicated patient. The environmental-services worker who cleaned the room after a patient with a gastrointestinal bleed hemorrhaged all over the floor. If you’re up to it, say a genuine “thank you” to those individuals. They deserve your gratitude and, on top of that, you might feel better too.

Planning for the Unknowns

Emergency medicine is not, and will never be, an easy job. The unknowns are constant, whether it’s the boarding situation, the future of the Match, or whether your “black cloud” status will come onto your next shift. Every day, we face the challenges and celebrate the successes we see in our patients, our coworkers, and our health care systems. These experiences and thoughts rightfully evoke strong emotions. However, they should not define our wellness.

In “Man’s Search for Meaning,” psychologist Viktor Frankl describes his observations in Nazi death camps: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”¹⁶ While we can’t and shouldn’t prevent the way we feel or experience things, by taking a mindful approach, we can transform our own attitudes towards them. Listening to ourselves and accepting these emotions openly, taking a breath, and showing gratitude are simple and accessible ways to practice mindfulness. In the end, we may just realize the burden we feel is transient, like the ebb and flow of our emergency department census.

Dr. Koo is faculty and an emergency physician at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC and St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown, Maryland. He is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at MedStar Health and Georgetown University Hospital and adjunct assistant professor of military and emergency medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.