LESSONS FROM TOP WOMEN PHYSICIANS ABOUT SELF-CARE

My younger daughter was born on a cold, rainy day at New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYP).

Fast forward to this year’s NYP Women Physicians Symposium, where I led a packed session of Design the LONG Life You Love.

Over the years, I’ve trusted these doctors with the care of my family, friends, and myself. Now, they trusted me to care for them.

Women physicians face unique challenges, and burnout hits them especially hard. In 2022, the American Medical Association (AMA) reported that 57% of female doctors experienced symptoms of burnout—compared to 47% of their male colleagues.

The main reason? Work overload. In addition to demanding and often stressful jobs, women physicians, like many working women, often shoulder most of the household responsibilities and caregiving for children or aging parents. This added load makes an already challenging career even tougher.

Our session gave these remarkable doctors a chance to focus on their well-being, shifting the focus from constantly caring for others to caring for themselves.

Inspired by these amazing women physicians, here are some key lessons from our Design the LONG Life You Love session, valuable not only for doctors but for anyone in a high-stress job:

1. Prioritize self-care: Remember, you are the “user” of your own life. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of carving out time to focus on yourself and your needs, rather than always putting others first. It’s like putting the oxygen mask on yourself first before helping others.

2. Take a Pause: Incorporating breaks, opportunities for reflection, and activities that nurture creativity and social connection can help prevent burnout. This doesn’t come naturally or easily to many successful leaders, just as it wasn’t for these women physicians. I remember my own hesitation about taking a break to attend a session on identifying our personal mission with the Women Presidents Organization (WPO) years ago, during which I described my mission as designing the life I love—a sentence that has changed my life.

3. Reconnect with your creativity: You are all extraordinarily creative, but you need a process, just as I do. This is where I come in. My role is to teach you our design process—the same one we use to design innovative products and experiences. Applying a designer's mindset can help you see your life from a new perspective, understand yourself anew, and, as a result, make long-lasting and positive changes. 

For example, using the Metaphor tool, I once saw myself as a tree—with roots in Turkey, a trunk in New York, and fruit spread across the world. This image clarified where I come from and where I’m going. Similarly, in this session, several physicians shared their own metaphors: one was a river, another chocolate, and another a fruit tree. It was inspiring to see how a single metaphor could reflect each person’s life in a new way, revealing their unique essence and potential.

4. Cultivate a support network: Collaborative exercises like Help Me Help You, where you share things you need help with—whether it’s organizing a wardrobe, cooking for your family, or making time for yourself without feeling guilty—with your peers provides mutual understanding and support. Building connections with others in similar high-stress roles can combat feelings of isolation and elevate our sense of community.

5. Embrace creativity and playfulness: Engaging in creative activities, even if they feel challenging, can provide a mental break and unlock new modes of thinking. I find that being intentional about playfulness and levity can increase our well-being, especially in high-pressure environments. Asking Women Physicians to useRong Thinking, our tool for coming up with the worst possible idea and then pivoting to the right idea, may feel counterintuitive, but it allowed them to break preconceptions and play with new ideas by failing intentionally.

6. Define your personal values and vision: The process of deconstructing and reconstructing your life and expressing intentions for the future through a personal manifesto helps clarify core values and a sense of purpose. Having this guiding framework, grounded in your values, can help navigate difficult decisions and maintain alignment with what’s most important, allowing you to live a life true to who you are.

The emphasis on self-care, community, values alignment, and creative problem-solving provides a model for maintaining well-being and thriving in demanding work contexts.

Thank you, NYP Women Physicians, for taking a break from your busy schedules to embrace the design process with open arms. You are extraordinarily creative and inspire us.

Ayse