Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • COVID-19
    • Articles & podcasts
    • Blog posts
    • Collection
    • News
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • Classified ads
  • Authors
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
  • CMA Members
    • Overview for members
    • Earn CPD Credits
    • Print copies of CMAJ
    • Career Ad Discount
  • Subscribers
    • General information
    • View prices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN

User menu

Search

  • Advanced search
CMAJ
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN
CMAJ

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • COVID-19
    • Articles & podcasts
    • Blog posts
    • Collection
    • News
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • Classified ads
  • Authors
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
  • CMA Members
    • Overview for members
    • Earn CPD Credits
    • Print copies of CMAJ
    • Career Ad Discount
  • Subscribers
    • General information
    • View prices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
  • Visit CMAJ on Facebook
  • Follow CMAJ on Twitter
  • Follow CMAJ on Pinterest
  • Follow CMAJ on Youtube
  • Follow CMAJ on Instagram
Letters

Emphasizing altruism is problematic for physicians

Jillian Bailey
CMAJ July 27, 2020 192 (30) E865; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.76075
Jillian Bailey
Family physician, Headwaters Health Care Centre, Orangeville, Ont.
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

As a family physician in small-town Ontario, my heart sank when I read the CMAJ commentary “Mitigating the Psychological Effects of COVID-19 on Health Care Workers.”1 At first I wasn’t sure why, but on further reflection, it was the following statement that worried me: “Emphasizing the altruism of working in health care and serving of the greater good will help health care workers to be reminded of their purpose in a time of crisis.”

I fear that the call to altruism may lead to worsening compassion fatigue and burnout among my colleagues. I would like to suggest that we encourage each other in the pursuit of meaning in our careers. Altruism and meaning are quite different concepts.

Altruism is defined by Google as “the belief or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.”

I believe that, as physicians, we limit ourselves by seeking only to be altruistic. Having a “selfless concern” for others implies putting my own needs last or, even worse, that meeting my needs and my patient’s needs are mutually exclusive concepts. I believe that couldn’t be further from the truth! Physician burnout contributes to poor patient outcomes, poor patient satisfaction and increased health care costs.2 The personal toll burnout can have on a doctor’s life is also grim — contributing to the physician suicide rate being double that of the general population.3

Altruism is not the solution. I suggest that we encourage ourselves to reconnect with meaning, our “why” that we are in medicine.

The pursuit of meaning may be what brought us to medicine in the first place. As young doctors, we may have felt drawn to fulfill an inexplicable calling, to leave a legacy or to develop important connections with our patients. In their book Burnout, Emily and Amelia Nagoski define meaning as “the nourishing experience of being connected to something larger than ourselves.”4

As physicians we have the unique privilege of being part of our patients’ lives in profoundly meaningful ways. We participate in life from birth to death, pandemic or no pandemic. Sometimes we offer heroic treatments, sometimes we are a listening ear or a quiet presence. Connecting with why I am a physician goes way beyond altruism; finding meaning enriches my life and my patients’ lives as well.

So let’s stop putting altruism on a pedestal. It is short-sighted and diminishes the humanity in each physician. Instead, as physicians battling the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, we should remember now more than ever to put on our own oxygen mask first, then turn to those around us and help however we are able. By caring for ourselves, we will be vastly better equipped to care for our patients.

Footnotes

  • Competing interests: None declared.

References

  1. ↵
    1. Wu PE,
    2. Styra R,
    3. Gold WL
    . Mitigating the psychological effects of COVID-19 on health care workers. CMAJ 2020;192:E459–60.
    OpenUrlFREE Full Text
  2. ↵
    1. Panagioti M,
    2. Geraghty K,
    3. Johnson J,
    4. et al
    . Association between physician burnout and patient safety, professionalism, and patient satisfaction. JAMA Intern Med 2018;178:1317–30.
    OpenUrl
  3. ↵
    1. Albuquerque J,
    2. Tulk S
    . Physician suicide. CMAJ 2019;191:E505.
    OpenUrlFREE Full Text
  4. ↵
    1. Nagoski E,
    2. Nagoski A
    . Burnout: the secret to unlocking the stress cycle. New York: Ballantine Books; 2019.
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

Canadian Medical Association Journal: 192 (30)
CMAJ
Vol. 192, Issue 30
27 Jul 2020
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author

Article tools

Respond to this article
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
To sign up for email alerts or to access your current email alerts, enter your email address below:
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on CMAJ.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Emphasizing altruism is problematic for physicians
(Your Name) has sent you a message from CMAJ
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the CMAJ web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Emphasizing altruism is problematic for physicians
Jillian Bailey
CMAJ Jul 2020, 192 (30) E865; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.76075

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
‍ Request Permissions
Share
Emphasizing altruism is problematic for physicians
Jillian Bailey
CMAJ Jul 2020, 192 (30) E865; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.76075
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • Mitigating the psychological effects of COVID-19 on health care workers
  • PubMed
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • Coexisting failures do not diminish the stature of a giant
  • Dare we hope
  • Highlighting obesity as a risk factor for endometrial cancer
Show more Letters

Similar Articles

Content

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Collections
  • Sections
  • Blog
  • Podcasts
  • Alerts
  • RSS
  • Early releases

Information for

  • Advertisers
  • Authors
  • Reviewers
  • CMA Members
  • Media
  • Reprint requests
  • Subscribers

About

  • General Information
  • Journal staff
  • Editorial Board
  • Governance Council
  • Journal Oversight
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright and Permissions

Copyright 2021, Joule Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved. ISSN 1488-2329 (e) 0820-3946 (p)

All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association or its subsidiaries.

Powered by HighWire