I ended up saying;
“Hi L, it’s A. I’m really really sorry. I’m meant to be on the 4pm-3am shift today but ever since starting this job I’ve just been so stressed out and I’m not coping and I just can’t come in.”
I was shaking and I burst into tears on the phone. I feel I am in floods of tears more than I am not at the moment.
I was shocked that she asked me to call the consultant , Dr K, and tell him. I’m having a breakdown on the phone, having done the most difficult thing – and you’re going to get me to repeat it all again? This time to a consultant who I work with?
I get off the phone to L and I’m flooded with regret – what have I done? What have I started now? Can I just back out? I’ll just go into work it’s easier than having to go through all of this.
I haven’t told anyone I’m doing this. All week I have been calling my parents every day before going into my shift in tears saying ‘I can’t go in, I need to go off work, I can’t do this’. I have just begun my second year working as a doctor but I have found the job overwhelming since I started. This isn’t just the jump up to a more senior role, it is working in a broken system, under immense pressure, suffering from years of cuts to the NHS, rota gaps, and rising demand.
My parents have been begging me to go off but every day I have said ‘no I am going in, I can’t let my team down.’
My boyfriend knows I’ve been stressed for months. He’s been picking me up after my hellish shifts. He’s been comforting me, feeding me, dragging me out of bed where he finds me most evenings after work, trying to fall asleep at 7pm just to stop my head whirring with work anxieties. We’ve hardly had chance for a conversation lately, let alone for me to drop the bomb of ‘I’m calling in sick with stress’.
Anyway, I stop crying, I take a deep breath, and I call Dr K. It went something like this…
“Hi, Dr K?”
“Yes.”
“This is A, one of the FY2s”
“Yes.”
“Is this an ok time to talk?”
“Yes.”
Short, snappy responses –he’s obviously stressed on the ward round. He thinks this is a referral.
“I’m really sorry, this is incredibly hard for me to do but I’ve been really stressed since I started this job and I don’t think I can come in today….” I am desperately trying to hold back tears, and he can definitely hear it in my voice.
I can’t remember the specifics of what he says at this point. What I do remember is the lack of any sign of empathy. His tone remained the same business-like tone and he said that he can’t really help and I should call back L to call other doctors to fill in. I apologise.
I feel awful after the call. I’m a fake. I’m a phoney. I’m pathetic. I’ve created this whole situation. I am weak. I should suck this up, obviously this is hard – being a doctor is hard. It is stressful; this is part of the job.
I’ve gone too far now though. I’ve called and told the consultant now.
I call L back. She sounds stressed, she’s looking at the rota and finally finds someone who might be able to fill in.
Thank you. A sigh of relief.
She then asks me – “what would you like me to put you down as ‘stress?’ ‘Work stress?’”
“Excuse me? What’s this for, who can see this?”
“Mental health issues. I’ll put you down as mental health issues”.
I’m too mentally and emotionally exhausted. I just need this to be done. I can’t fight her. Wearily I reply “OK…”
Admitting that you are not OK is an extremely challenging thing for healthcare workers to do, especially when you see colleagues facing the same challenges in the workplace and, supposedly, coping with it. Once someone has made that courageous step of deciding to speak up, it should not be as hard as it was for me to go through that process.
When I went to make that phone call into work, I was already fighting with feelings of failure, guilt, embarrassment. Knowing I was only adding to the work load of my colleagues who were already over-stretched and over-worked, was humongous. And how come they were managing to cope, and I wasn’t?
All of these thoughts were intensified after experiencing that phone call.
There has been a stark rise in healthcare staff who need to take sick days for anxiety, stress, and burnout. In the NHS in England, they now account for a quarter of sick days. We need to make speaking up about these easier in the NHS, and look at how we are dealing with staff going off sick because of these reasons. If we don’t, staff are being encouraged to not voice when they’re not ok, or not voice when they need some support, and that is an incredibly dangerous place to be.