Resilience: Being Tough in Tough Times

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Resilience is a core necessity in medicine. Resilience is toughness. Resilience is tenacity. Resilience is recovering and coming back for more.

You need resilience to survive the long education and training for nearly every role in medicine. And as a patient, you need resilience to just make it through not only your acute care but the often weeks, months, or years of healing that happen afterward.

Day in and day out, we call on our own resilience to get through difficult situations, tragic experiences, and more — so that we can keep doing what we do best.

Now, I think it’s important to note that, usually, we feature storytellers who are healthcare professionals — but often resilience is even more important on the patient side.

Sure, we as doctors, nurses, PAs, NPs, etc., are on a journey with our patients — but it’s our patients that need to live it, breathe it, and deal with it every day. It brings a new level of resilience when the healthcare is not just your professional life, but your entire life — as it often is for our patients.

Chapter 1. From Tragedy to Advocacy (3:00) — When the worst happened to his son, one father took the opportunity to help others. Story by Martin McNair.

Chapter 2. Balancing Medicine and Country Music Stardom (17:00) — How one doctor’s story of following a passion turned out a few hits. Story by James Robert Webb, MD.

Chapter 3. The Power of Social Media (32:22) — This doctor discovered a better way to communicate health information. Story by Austin Chiang, MD, MPH.

Episode produced by Ryan Basen

Hosted by Amy Ho, MD

Sound engineering by Greg Laub

Theme music by Palomar

Want to share your story? Read the Anamnesis Storyteller Tip Sheet, and when you’re ready, apply here!

Last Updated September 24, 2021