With every profession comes their own hazards and risks. While some professions have relatively low level of risks, others markedly predispose you to high marked risks.
Unfortunately, to this latter group belong healthcare work.
The attendant risks facing healthcare workers come in different shades and shapes. There is the risk of getting burnt-out as a result of too many overtimes and poor motivation.
There is also the risks of contracting deadly diseases in the line of duty. Even there is the risk of being manhandled or physically hurt by psycho patients.
Your emotional balance is yet another area susceptible to risk. Maybe it’s part of professional competence to be inured to the moans and groans of people in pain, I’m very sure this quality isn’t desirable in the family setting.
So, the challenge of managing two rather contradictory different personalities arises. One shows emotions, the other doesn’t.
The list is just inexhaustible.
But you can successfully manage all these downside. You can be a fulfilled healthcare worker without putting your wellbeing to jeopardy.
This is how to do it.
1. Always be professional
All standard procedures are already known. And safety measures are fundamental to these procedures. Observance of the rules and regulations guiding these procedures should be ‘the beginning of wisdom’ for you. You don’t want to endanger your life or your well-being.
It’s all about discipline and diligence.
Remember Ebola, HIV, hepatitis etc. are out there. These are very contagious and difficult to manage diseases. Seriously, it won’t be funny to unwittingly fling yourself into trouble when the world still so much needs you and your services.
2. Create for yourself a life outside work
After-work life is very important to your well-being. You must find time to relax. You must find time to unwind and get fully recharged.
Work can easily be addictive. But you certainly don’t what that because it brings so many attendant problems that whatever advantage you might think it has becomes insignificant. What you want is a balance between work and your private life.
Plus this time you spend leisurely has restoration powers.
So, don’t be as harsh on yourself as to engage in self-denial. What the long hours at work do to your body needs not be left to take full tolls.
All you need is to identify activities that catch your fancy. It may be yoga. It may be meeting family and friends. It may even be pure meditation or something more sporting-like such as light exercises, swimming or jogging.
3. Go for higher qualifications
Being a healthcare worker can be very strenuous. But thanks to technology, a lot of ease has been eased in and the future still looks brighter. However, you must be up-to-date to efficiently use these technologies. This is where further education comes in.
Whether you’re a doctor, a nurse or a laboratory technician, getting higher qualification is a necessity. You need to constantly update your knowledge in order to maintain your professionally competence. And there are lots of institutions waiting for you out there, on campus and off-campus. Even online.
For instance, nurse practitioner programs are a good means for a nurse to top their knowledge up. Doctors, pharmacists, laboratory technicians etc. are not exempted.
4. Respect your body’s in-built timer
Whatever you may be doing, stop whenever your body says so. Nobody understands that language it speaks like you do. It’s going to be suicidal if you keep pushing when your body says it’s about to break.
It’s particularly important that you get enough rest, especially night rest. And since your job can at times make staying up all night inevitable, you should discipline yourself to always pay back lost sleep in due course and in the right quantity.
Vacating annually naturally agrees with the human body. So don’t shove it under the carpet. Your body needs it. In fact, it tells you when it needs a long vacation.