| Support and coping | Threshold for seeking help |
'You are, you know, you are the doctor… so you keep everything for yourself and that’s, that’s the, the biggest [issue], you know, the threshold to seek help….' (Focus group 1, R6) |
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'I think there’s a stigmatisation amongst doctors that if you need to take more time, if you need to have some extra support, that, overall, that’s perceived negatively.' (Focus group 2, R2) |
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'Quite often you get asked, “What do you think is going on then?"... And you make your own diagnosis.' (Focus Group 1, R2) |
| Recognising burnout in the professional culture of medicine |
'I found that times where I haven’t been happy, but it’s taken me quite a while to realise that. And actually it wasn’t till kind of about six months nearly down the line, I thought, “Actually, no, things aren’t right and, and this is what’s wrong in life and this is what’s making me unhappy.”' (Focus group 1, R2) |
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'No one should be going to work and being made to feel, you know, belittled or disrespected. And I think, at times, in medicine, I have certainly experienced it.' (Focus group 2, R2) |
| Maladaptive coping approaches |
'They avoid it, they might do some exercise but they might watch loads of Netflix, might not go out, might smoke, might drink, might take drugs.' (Focus group 1, R5) |
| Adaptive coping approaches |
'…pretty much every day actually, I’ll go home and there’ll be something that’s happened that day that I’ll talk to my wife about who’s not medical … it might help me focus on a bit more of how I felt at the time or how the person felt at the time and that can be really helpful … she’ll often put her non-medical spin on it which I think can be quite good.' (Focus Group, R5) |
| Personal acceptance |
'I know, for me, it’s kind of my acceptance of my own limitations, like accepting that I’m not perfect, which took a really long time to learn…' (Focus group 2, R6) |
| Use of mindfulness apps |
'I was trying to do things like downloading mindfulness apps and trying to actively do mindfulness. And then I find that, “Oh, I’m not stressed any more, don’t bother with that anymore,” and it just goes out the window.' (Focus group 1, R5) |