Saving the medical marriage

It was touching to read Dr. Ursus's account of the troubles in his marriage.1 Touching because I know of too many colleagues who have actually lived through or fear a similar scenario. Our all-consuming passion to help patients often places a huge strain on our personal relationships with spouses and children.

Fortunately, there are some excellent books to help physicians preempt difficulties in their personal lives before they reach the stage where counselling becomes necessary. The Medical Marriage: Sustaining Healthy Relationships for Physicians and Their Families, by husband-and-wife team Wayne M. Sotile and Mary O. Sotile, describes key factors in sustaining successful medical marriages. The book includes simple self-assessment tools for identifying important stressors and personality traits that can harm a marriage. Irondoc: Practical Stress Management Tools for Physicians is a new book by Canadian expert healer of doctors, psychiatrist Mamta Gautam. It shows that when physicians try to be all things to all people, their personal needs are often neglected. Dr. Gautam describes, in practical, easy-to-read prose, how to stay in medicine and enjoy it and ensure that one's family enjoys it too.

We doctors need to learn how to help ourselves if we are to be able to continue helping others.