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It is often so easy to conclude that Doctors have a healthy lifestyle, after all, we are the ones giving out healthy advices and ensuring that everyone is living well, but to be honest with you, most doctors are only practically coping through life, with a lot of socioeconomic, mental and even physical health issues all committing to an unhealthy lifestyle.
This doesn't only include Drs in most cases, other health workers are tied along.
When Doctors warn to sleep more, they often don't.
When they warn to eat good diet, they often don't
When they warn to practice exercise, they hardly ever have the time.
When they advice to use medications, they hate using it.
And Sadly, most doctors are just one disease away from penury.
Are we trying to uphold a social myth or is this part of the role playing or something?
From this post I ll be sharing with you certain facts for everyone to know that Drs are not super humans, they have flesh and blood and so cut them a slack, and they do have knowledge and life saving skills, but they also need to be saved.
Once I was a Dr serving in a prestigious organization and I was know to be very hard-working, I fell ill one day and became a patient in the same hospital and I realised life from another perspective, being on that bed showed me that this Doctor-life was almost just a scam. High expectations, in ability to perform and sadly so poor remuneration.
A doctor will work overtime in the name of saving lives and getting paid for his own life and expenses, he gets to realise this is his main source of income so the more he works, the more his pay. He may even take as much shifts as possible to make ends meet, although in most modern countries there is a way to limit the number of hours you can work in a week. But not in Nigeria, it is subject to you.
What is worse is that the Bosses and the patients don't even want to know how many hours this Doctor has been working, they just expect some level of accuracy to be constant, until he drops on the floor before they can believe he is tired, "just attend to me and let me be fine", and some even add, "don't you get paid" ?
Well, this post is most to shed some light on the Drs lifestyle, you would want to know, Some of this doesn't apply to me along, we are many and we have different health vices, take it from me, your doctor's are the worst patients. They won't probably take most of the advice they give, and this is the most terrible of lifestyle hehe. But some have the discipline to handle their health well and seek health care early when they feel symptoms.
Sleep
You all know this already, your doctor's sleep poorly, and this doesn't matter their level of career accomplishment. They ll give sleep away for other things, reading for exams, movies, eating at odd hours, anything but sleep hehehe.. this is unhealthy and can result in long term issues later in life.
Diet
First they may not even have time to cook healthy food, especially the male, so they ve either got a spot or family support or even married yeah. It comes to diet and they ll get to eat whatever they can find, just to keep the brain working, this starts way back in medical school and has this led to a badly developed habit, it's hard to stop for those who kept it. Hence please, don't overthink it if you are led to get some good food for your Doctor. They need it to be healthy and keep us all healthy.
Social
Some people take this personal and think Doctors are being too proud, they don't attend most social functions and they seem to always be all about work and studies and seriousness. I ve had my share of this too, I m not really happy about it, but the number of weddings and birthdays I ve had to forget has been enormous. I still remember mine tho. This has reduced contact with most people all in the name of avoiding much distractions and keeping focus. This would be a wrong way to go later in life. Many reasons why you need people and be in close and good contact with them. They are the ones that really matter.
Health
The Doctors health.. imagine being a godlike profession where the same thing that happens to your subjects also happens to you .. hehe. You can be sick. A lot of people hold this myth that a doctor cannot be sick of should not even be seen sick. That's a lie. And when this gets into his head, the tries to act like it, and form to be healthy even when he is not. Let's not talk about some Doctors health seeking behaviours.. mine as well. I would often make conclusions before I see a Doctor. Well that's obviously expected.
Ergonomics
I recall during my Orthopedic rotation, one of my COnsultants called a few of us aside and lectured us about the kind of shoe we wore. Seeing that we were going to be Doctors almost walking about all the time, there would need to be a need for some soft soles shoes to help go cushioning of our fit and avoiund some early osteoarthritis. More so, our sitting position and reading position causing back pain.
Most of these practices arent healthy, they do not contribute much to the general wellbeing of the Doctor and the general public is not helping either. Much more is to be said about his vision, his retention and family life, drinking, or use of drugs.
Selfcare is priority when it comes to health care, you need a Doctor who is well taken care of, either by himself or the Government, to take care of you. That said.
Doctors and health workers are enjoined to engage better health care practices so as to be in the best shape to help those in need of their services.
Thanks for reading
Further Reading
The unhealthy behaviors of physicians -ELAINE KHOONG, MD