The Worthy Physician
"Reigniting your humanity and passion for medicine."
Welcome to The Worthy Physician, a podcast for physicians, other healthcare workers, and high-performing individuals seeking to reconnect with their humanity, rediscover their passion for medicine, and redefine fulfillment. This podcast offers reflection, healing, and authentic storytelling in a world where burnout, imposter syndrome, and overwhelming expectations are shared.
Medicine is more than a profession—it's a calling. Yet, modern healthcare often leaves physicians feeling disconnected, chasing milestones that fail to bring lasting satisfaction. The Worthy Physician challenges these narratives, prioritizing well-being, core values, and authenticity.
Why Listen?
1. Physician Burnout: Understand its causes and recovery strategies to rediscover joy in medicine.
2. Authentic Self: Explore your identity beyond the white coat and integrate it into all aspects of life.
3. Imposter Syndrome: Overcome doubts, embrace your worth, and value your contributions to medicine.
4. The Arrival Fallacy: Break free from achievement-driven dissatisfaction and find fulfillment in the present.
5. Core Values: Align decisions with what truly matters to live purpose-driven lives.
6. Financial Empowerment: Gain insights on managing debt, creating sustainability, and building financial literacy.
7. Real Stories: Hear physicians' struggles and triumphs, fostering connection and solidarity.
8. Healing Through Storytelling: Share and listen to stories that inspire resilience and growth.
What to Expect
Each episode blends:
- Engaging in Conversations with experts in medicine, psychology, and finance.
- Real-life stories from physicians who've navigated similar challenges.
- Practical Strategies for addressing burnout, improving balance, and enhancing well-being.
- A Supportive Community that celebrates your victories and offers encouragement.
Why It Matters
You are more than your profession—you're a human being with dreams and aspirations. The Worthy Physician reminds you to prioritize your values, honor your well-being, and reignite your passion for medicine.
Who Should Listen?
This podcast is for physicians seeking clarity, fulfillment, and alignment, whether struggling with burnout, imposter syndrome, or the pressures of the medical field.
Join the Movement
Redefine what it means to be a physician today. Subscribe to The Worthy Physician and take the first step toward a healthier, more compassionate approach to medicine.
The Worthy Physician
Spirituality and Bringing the Authentic Self into the Exam Room with Dr. Haidar Al-Hakim
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
On this episode, I sat down again and had a chat with Dr. Haidar Al-Hakim [The ThirdEyeDoc], who is an Ophthalmologist, psychotherapist, author, and host of the Surgical Spirit Podcast. He previously had discussed his personal experience with burnout in a previous episode, and mentioned his interest in the spiritual side, and at that point I knew I had to bring him back for another round of discussion!
-Spirituality, well we are all spiritual beings.
-By looking into/tapping into this nature, one can understand "What it's like to sacrifice, etc."
-One can bring to light more of the authentic self, which can help to break down barriers and improve connection/communication with patients.
-A system does not define who you are as a person, YOU define who you are.
http://www.drhaidaralhakim.com/
http://www.drhaidaralhakim.com/surgical-spirit-podcast/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-haidar-al-hakim-17963573/
https://twitter.com/thethirdeyedoc
Though I am a physician, this is not medical advice. This is only a tool that physicians can use to get ideas on how to deal with burnout and/or know they are not alone. If you are in need of medical assistance talk to your physician.
Learn more about female physicians' journey through burnout to thriving!
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/books
Let's connect for speaking opportunities!
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/dr-shahhaque-md-as-a-speaker
Check out the free resources from The Worthy Physician:
https://www.theworthyphysician.com/freebie-downloads
Battle of the Boxes
21 Day Self Focus Journal
Hi, welcome to the worthy physician podcast. I am your host, Dr. Sapna Shah-Haque, a board certified internal medicine physician
Dr. Shah-Haque
00:31 - 01:00
On this episode of the worthy physician. I sit down and talk again with Dr. Haidar Al-Hakim, an ophthalmologist in the UK psychotherapist, author and podcast host of the surgical spirit podcast. Today, we talk about, spirituality, how during his existential crisis, he had difficulty combining both worlds. He shares his thoughts, listen, and enjoy. So thanks for coming on again.
Dr. Al-Hakim
01:01 - 01:10
Hi. Hi. Sapna. Yeah, I mean, well, look, it, it's your choice, you know, it's not as if I, cajoled you into this or paid you any money or
Dr. Shah-Haque
01:11 - 01:38
No, no, not at all, but I mean, last time we had a very interesting conversation, I think. And you had mentioned spirituality and that's not really something that physicians, readily mentioned as far as not being within medicine, mostly because we kind of separate those two beings out of ourselves. I think as physicians intentionally unintentionally, it just happens. but can you please introduce yourself again for our listeners
Dr. Al-Hakim
01:39 - 03:07
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. My name is I'm a trained ophthalmologist here in the UK. but I've always been interested in the, the unseen, the unheard, the unspoken, the metaphysical woo stuff. I grew up in a very strict, sheer Muslim family, but my dad was a Marine biologist, so there was that kind of science flavor there. but yeah, it was, I've always been interested in the religious talk, you know, the profound talk, and I just found that, you know, doing medical school and, you know, going through the science kind of stuff, it, it wasn't deep enough, you know, it was quite superficial. Yeah, that, that definitely. And I think as I'm getting older and sort of my joints are falling apart, I guess it's a good way of, you know, having an excuse to talk about other things apart from, you know, why they got their cataracts. And I, you know, for some of them that want to hear it, I mean, other people just want the science and just want, you know, the empirical physicality of things and that's fine. I mean, I'm not going to try and sway them towards the, you know, the philosophical and the religious and the, and the, profound, I guess I'll find some of solace in that rather than just the physicality breaking down and, you know, the process of entropy taking over,
Dr. Shah-Haque
03:08 - 03:25
You know, and it's, it's funny because, and, and I'm, I'm Catholic, but in my twenties, my thirties fell away. So the fallen Catholic and then came back to the faith. I'm not strict at all more spirituality, not just where my spirituality lies.
Dr. Al-Hakim
03:26 - 03:35
And how do you define strict and how do you define spirituality I mean, I mean, you were very, you know, you're very definitive about that. I'm not strict. That sounds very definitive.
Dr. Shah-Haque
03:36 - 04:14
sure. So, and Catholic doctrine, right. And the Catholic church, there's Catholic doctrine and there the do's and don'ts, if you, you have to do this and it's very rigorous, you know, I always say that a cath Catholicism has a lot of rules. I see where they're coming from, but I'm more of a cafeteria Catholic I pick and choose what I want to follow based on my personal experiences in life. Right Your experiences in life help you to rethink some of the things we've been taught or rationalize it differently also to say, Hey, that's maybe not the way I would interpret it now compared to 20 years ago,
Dr. Al-Hakim
04:14 - 05:26
But that's such a big driving force. I mean, it sort of helps in, in medicine, so to speak because being a physician you're there for the patient. So you can take on all the guilt and all the blame and all the perks and all the suffering as a physician, you know, generally speaking patients quite like that, you know, all the responsibility is put on the physician. Probably it doesn't help the healing process because it's a, cause it's a dialogue, isn't it You know, the whole healing process is a dialogue between the patient and the, the physician, but on the short term, yeah. You know, patients like keep, cause you take on all the, all the negative energy onto yourself, but it felt quite natural for me because, because of so much guilt, you know, you weren't, you weren't allowed to have a good time and enjoy yourself and, you know, take on the, the trappings of, of the material world because of all this, religious guilt that was manifested physically on a, on a daily basis. so that was a bit of a, a bit of a split in your, in your persona from a young age and, you know, coming from Iraq and sort of going to the UK where it's, you know, where they've come out, you know, they've come away from Catholic guilt and even Protestant guilt. And, you know, there wasn't much guilt there at all. So
Dr. Al-Hakim
05:28 - 06:52
It's like, what's going on You know, here's me suffering away and everyone else is having a, an awesome time. Right. so that was an interesting dichotomy in your, in my persona plus the, like the, you know, the whole Eastern west thing, you know, what, what does it mean to be inter-religious in the west and what does it mean to be religious in the east You know, that's an interesting dichotomy as well. And, you know, for me, it was, you know, identity and religion equals identity, which means how you acted in the world. So it was all of me. So I was sort of religious first and everything else second. And, you know, as, as you go through Western society and you realize that it's not what they think, you know, it's the last thing on their minds. Right. and it sort of going through that, what's the word purging of your religiosity in the west, which was sort of an interesting experience. But I mean, you know, I, I found that I was less and less resilient, you know, once I was being purged of my innate culture or more profoundly, my religiosity, you know, I was much more vulnerable psychologically. So sort of to the attacks of, all the different ideologies, that you open bodied with, whether it's capitalism, communism, atheism, agnosticism, and sort of all the other isms that, that rain down on you, you know, once you lose quite a profound identity, right.
Dr. Shah-Haque
06:52 - 06:58
At what point in time did you start to reconcile spirituality with, with medicine
Dr. Al-Hakim
06:59 - 08:02
I think when I started reading individuals like Carl Young, you know, his work showed me that there is a possibility to be a scientist and a man of religion. you know, given that, you know, his father was, a religious man and his mother was a essentially, you know, clairvoyant. So, you know, you had those two, Wells together, plus he was, you know, he grew up, studying under Freud, right. So, you know, you had the whole gamut of, religion and a religion within a often coming world where science was becoming, you know, the main dominant force of, of knowledge, of a piston mortgagee and, you know, the empirical world taking over. So I found that actually, I, you know, I could have an intelligent conversation within myself of bringing these two worlds together. and it has been done before. I mean, I think being a Muslim, it is a fairly logical and sort of pragmatic religion anyway, because it does take into account reason being, you know, one of the main tenants of the religion.
Dr. Al-Hakim
08:02 - 09:03
but you know, growing up within a, a shear, a household, you know, it is a very, I mean, it's similar to Catholicism, you know, we, we, you know, we say that sort of shares in Ms, like the Catholicism of, of, Muslims, cause it was very dogmatic and, you know, you do have, you know, like, a transcendent human being, you know, who's the representative of God on us. So we do have that in terms of the amounts, you know, the infallibility of, figureheads within the church or, you know, within the religion individuals like himself and, you know, realizing that there is a, there's a lot more to religion than just dogma and just, you know, the usual soundbites that you hear from not really, you know, intellects, you know, pseudo next, essentially coupled with, you know, th th th there's this whole sort of scientific notion that we do have an unconscious yes.
Dr. Al-Hakim
09:03 - 10:04
And, you know, relating that to neurophysiology and neurobiology, we kind of came together that, that actually, you know, they're not two separate worlds, but one world is embedded within another. And what I'm understanding now is that sort of science is embedded within a story essentially. and science is embedded within religion, because you know, science is not profound enough, deep enough to ask these more philosophical questions. I mean, it shows us in the physical world, how things work and why things work, but nothing beyond that science is, is, is built within a moral structure. And those moral structures are much more, difficult to explicitly verbalize and, to describe, and that's why we're having these philosophical and in a religious debates, because it's much more difficult to, to verbalize these, moral issues.
Dr. Shah-Haque
10:04 - 10:13
No, I, I agree a hundred percent and I'm not disagreeing with you because you're, we're here having a discussion on a podcast
Dr. Al-Hakim
10:13 - 10:14
And the guests.
Dr. Shah-Haque
10:14 - 11:21
No, no. I try to approach everything with an open mind. If you look at a lot of the religious writings out of, from St. Thomas Aquinas, I mean the proofs of God, the uncaused cause the unmoved mover. And then you can also parallel that to Isaac Newton's physics, laws of physics, you know, an object emotional will stay in motion and you have the unmoved mover. God, the creator, God, the, you know, the source of creation of reason of moral. we have not just man's law, but we have moral law which comes from which comes from source. So I think that that ideology has always been there and has an, has paralleled multiple, science concepts. And then, I'm actually just beginning to understand Rumi because Rumi was a Sufi and his writings were not that of love between two humans, but that about taking God as the ultimate lovers.
Dr. Al-Hakim
11:21 - 11:50
I mean, I don't personally understand Romy. I mean, I love his work and I love his poetry. So, you know, I do get swept away by the romance of, of his words, but, you know, it's sort of delving in the unknown and that's where, you know, all the, the goodies, but also where all the horrors are. And I think that's, that's what science teaches. I, I, sorry, I meant religion teachers is, is that there's always two sides to the story. Right. Right. You know, whereas we're a science just tells us, well, we know one side of the story,
Dr. Shah-Haque
11:51 - 11:51
Right.
Dr. Al-Hakim
11:52 - 12:15
But not the other side of the story or, or at least modern science where, which, which I think is a bit of a joke at the moment, you know, because it doesn't tell us about the negative. It just tells us about what works and what doesn't work. And I think what doesn't work is it, I mean, I had this some way it's conscious is that tell us what doesn't work, you know, that's his job.
Dr. Shah-Haque
12:15 - 12:16
Right.
Dr. Al-Hakim
12:16 - 13:56
Right. You know, you know, which is a very, you know, profound, I mean, that sort of woke me up, you know, it's like, yeah, true. It's like, I'm conscious when things don't work. And, you know, an analogy of that is essentially your, your vehicle, you know, you don't notice your vehicle until it stops working. And then you're very much conscious of the, of the vehicle, you know, why the hell isn't working and so on. So I think science has lost its way in that. It doesn't tell us about how things don't work and I'm delving into the things that don't work. I think I'm just as valid as delving into things that work. So, I mean, it's become a bit lopsided and a bit Google slide. Yeah. One eyed monster it's turned into a one eyed monster plus with a recent pandemic, you know, it's turned into political one eyed monster, which makes it even more murky and, you know, more prone to manipulation and, deviousness, and not being able to talk about these things, whereas, you know, religion in essence is all about, there's more negative. And then there is positive in it, which is, I guess what put people off really cause it's, it talks about the darkness of law and that's what I like about know w when I went down the, the psycho analytical route as a lot of darkness there, you know, there's a lot of, monsters and sort of horrible things that go on inside your psyche and in your fantasies. So I think that's an extension of my, fascination with religion.
Dr. Shah-Haque
13:57 - 14:04
I think you have to acknowledge the dark side in order to acknowledge the light. They can't have one without the other.
Dr. Al-Hakim
14:05 - 14:21
Yeah. I mean, I mean, I don't know if you've seen the latest, Disney star wars series. it would be one, it, it, it only gets exciting when the bad guys are that, you know, doing bad things.
Dr. Shah-Haque
14:22 - 14:22
Right.
Dr. Al-Hakim
14:23 - 14:42
It's really, yeah, it's fun. People are attracted by the dog side, you know, it's, it, it really entices them into it. And I think it sort of allows them to look into their, into their cupboards for the skeletons. It just, gives them a glimpse of, you know, the other side of the moon.
Dr. Shah-Haque
14:44 - 14:51
Now, how do you incorporate spirituality into being a physician in your daily practice
Dr. Al-Hakim
14:52 - 15:57
Well, I think, first of all, it's difficult because, because it's, you know, it's quite, it's quite a loaded question and it's quite loaded topic, and we're explicitly told not to sort of incorporate belief systems within our practice, which is quite, you know, which is really weird, you know Cause it doesn't make sense because, you know, I believe that the cornea is like this, you know, or I believe that the eyes aqueous, drainage happens this way. So, you know, there's, you're, you're, you're, you always am implying somebody's system into any situation. So, I mean, it's sort of absurd for them to say that I think just being yourself, I mean, knowing that if you put yourself forward, in the best light and being honest with yourself and with the patient, you know, we use this word all the time, you know, it's become a bit of a fan favorite, you know, talking about vulnerability and you know, it sort of goes back to the negative and positive.
Dr. Al-Hakim
15:57 - 17:05
You know, if, if you are one honorable, you're showing your positive and your negative aspect. I mean, I don't personally wear a suit and tie when I see my patients, you know, I wear a polo, I've got my Crocs on, I don't wear any socks. So, you know, it's like, so they come in and already they're like, Hmm, this, this doctor's being himself. So maybe it gives them permission for them to be themselves. And to really tell me what's really going on rather than, you know, just sort of a formal, medical consultation. So, I'm putting my version of myself, which I feel is my true self, otherwise, otherwise I feel I'm acting and, and, it's diminishing of myself as it being, and it's diminishing of other people who, who come and see me. I mean, some, some individuals don't like what I'm offering and who I am.
Dr. Al-Hakim
17:06 - 18:45
so then the onus is on me to respect that and, and, move forward together to some, some reasonable resolution and hopefully, you know, allow the healing to take place. Yeah. So it's a complicated question and I'm trying to answer it, in the fullest of my ability, I'm not there to indoctrinate people into, you know, my way of thinking. Although I did use to do posts on Instagram and I used to call them hider isms, you know, just to kind of have a bit of fun, you know, take the piss out of the whole isms kind of stuff, putting myself forward as who I am and, what I'm about and, you know, trying to put my essence and my being into it. And rather than just, you know, the kind of psychology of things, you know, which is very, top heavy and heavy, and just be there and sort of feel the vibes and, and, you know, try and address the vibes I get, you know, I guess you get a feeling of things. I mean, you know, I've, I've, I've trusted more my feelings and my, training, if that makes sense. whereas before it was like, right, I've been taught to do this, this, this, and this. And I think over time, I've learned to listen to my feelings and my sort of gut feelings inside. And I guess that's, you know, the unseen power coming to you. It doesn't sound very, modern and medical, but that's how I feel.
Dr. Shah-Haque
18:45 - 19:42
No, I, I think that if you nourish the spirit, regardless of how one addresses that, whether it's a, B, C, or D, when you open up the self to that spiritual side, number two, make sure your cup is full and you are an energy giver instead of an energy vampire, so to speak because you're running on fumes, which we know can happen in burnout. And number three, you learn to look at people without judgment, which takes practice and we're able to, as physicians, I think, or even just people in general, we're able to approach another individual pause, not just take into account vital signs and whether the patient is in pain or uncomfortable. What I see on the first two seconds when I poke my head in the room, but also if we're what energy is this person giving off, we can really tap into that.
Dr. Shah-Haque
19:43 - 20:33
And we used to joke in a residency that it was our spidey sense. You know, it's your spidey sense, or if it, provokes an anal pucker, you know, address that issue. So ICU, oh boy, a patient, this is not clinically adding up, but I have a high clinical suspicion. I can't prove it, but if I don't, address this, for example, abdominal pain about abdomen is soft, but it's, I believe it might be a small bowel obstruction just based on clinical guests, if you don't address that and you don't listen to that spidey sense or that inner sense, then you can really miss a ton. So I think that there has to be that second nature almost, and it has to, and it, after a certain amount of time, that's going to vary for each person. It becomes routine.
Dr. Al-Hakim
20:34 - 21:49
Yeah. Yeah. And, and for me, I never realized that consciously, whereas before it was happening unconsciously, and then I'd put it down to experience. Whereas now I think I realized that, that it's a part of you and that you've allowed it to be a part of you. Right. and that you realize that, you know, this is, this is natural, this is a second, you know, it's just, it, it's just like, I'm just the same as, you know, when way with family, with friends, it's, you know, we don't actually learn these things. We just pick it up through, through action and through feedback. So it doesn't have to be as descriptive as how we're trained. and I think if we can sort of celebrate that and sort of allow our trainees to understand that this is just normal, you know Yeah. It's typical to describe me, you know, it is difficult to talk about and, you know, that's, you know, that's the mystery of, of spirituality, so to speak. And I think once you start describing it and putting it into bullet points, you kind of lose the, the magic of it.
Dr. Shah-Haque
21:50 - 22:36
I think that's a great way to describe it as magic it's it's no, I'm not trying to get on, get off on a tangent here, but I think it's, it's so individualized impacted by multiple things. If life experience, culture, family, et cetera, it's almost like our inner magic, our inner essence that comes out and the more and more we practice it, the more and more it comes out in what we do, it allows us to have better self-insight self-awareness of this is where I am on a spectrum of feelings of life, of, of where I stand with self and a higher power. So it can have multiple facets, but it can also promote healing. It can also promote resilience.
Dr. Al-Hakim
22:36 - 23:38
Yeah. I mean, on the resilience side of things, I think, you know, that certainly allowed me to, to, you know, become more resilient, knowing that there are other things I don't know, and have no control of and don't understand full stop and never will understand full stop. And, you know, you kind of let go of, the tension that builds up, you know, Jane those burnout stages and, and, it just allows you to do more and, and, and be yourself more. And I think that's something that, I like to do, you know, within limits of obviously, you know, you know, there are society limits and, you know, that's much more important than professional limits, right. because you know, the professional limits are much more formularized and that comes, you know, down the line. but you know, around your colleagues and around the people that you work with and, you know, within the, immediate society that you're in.
Dr. Al-Hakim
23:38 - 24:58
But yeah, I mean, I hope we're not losing that, you know, given the current pandemic and how we will sort of isolated from each other, we've all gone off in our own, dysfunctional tangents of, of, dysfunction. You know, we don't have other people to kind of put us back in our, you know, the right paths, you know, cause the collective is actually, you know, much more, good at telling us what works and what doesn't work, in the physical collective rather than the, you know, the, the dysfunctional social media collective. Right. You know, which is very, very much, manipulated and augmented to, depending on, you know, the powers be. so I think, I mean, I've been quite lucky, you know, I've, I've, I've, I've maintained physical contact with patients throughout the whole pandemic and that's been a blessing really, you know, to keep having human contact and that's been a godsend really, you know, that's allowed me to continue my spiritual journey with, with myself and other spiritual human beings, all human beings, a spiritual, I'm not saying that some I'm not a spiritual.
Dr. Shah-Haque
24:59 - 25:00
No, no, I have
Dr. Al-Hakim
25:01 - 25:03
Absolutely you what I mean, you know what I mean
Dr. Shah-Haque
25:03 - 25:09
Yes I do. Yes. As human beings there, you can't separate, you can try, but at the end of the day,
Dr. Al-Hakim
25:09 - 25:44
Yeah, yeah, no, no. Yeah. You know, there's, there's always that, I mean, you know, now it was called the psychological, which is fight, which is fine, but that's become too abstract, you know, too. And that's consequence of losing the bigger picture and, you know, losing the fact that actually we, we don't have much control. We have very little control of actually, and that's where spirituality dash religion, is, is situated now in that, uncontrolled sphere of influence.
Dr. Shah-Haque
25:44 - 26:40
I think you brought up a very good point and that is that we don't have control over a lot of things. I have control with how I'm going to react to a situation, but I have no control over what situations are gonna be thrown at me today. But if with the spiritual side, with the religious side, whatever you want to call it, I have a way of, maneuvering, responding, processing, like patients want to give all their guilt to the, the, the doctor, we as physicians or people in general can give our trials and tribulations to a higher source. So that is also very comforting. But what would you tell other physicians or other individuals as to, how to really based on your personal experiences, how do you augment your spirituality in order to kind of elevate your spiritual game
Dr. Al-Hakim
26:40 - 26:43
Well, I mean, I never tell positions anything whatsoever.
Dr. Shah-Haque
26:44 - 26:45
Okay. Fair.
Dr. Al-Hakim
26:45 - 27:49
That's like the worst thing I could ever do is turn another physician. I'm not sure. I mean, I guess I've, I've, I've, I'm trusting myself a lot more. I think that's what I've been doing, trusting myself a lot more. just, just letting things happen and, you know, letting go of pretty much everything. I mean, my waist is let go quite a bit these days, but Hey, you know, that that's something else it's difficult. I don't know how to explain it. I think, you know, just, just, allowing the, you know, the other side to exist as in the non-scientific size to exist and just, you know, allowing it to osmose into your life, you know, rather than putting up barriers and saying, no, this is, this is absurd. And you know, this is, nonsensical, just let it be, let it come to you and, you know, take it with a pinch of salt.
Dr. Al-Hakim
27:49 - 28:43
Don't, don't treat it, you know, too seriously. And then you'll find that sort of all these, interesting and profound ideas cosmos into your being, and then something will pop along and then you think, oh, wow. Yeah. You know, I can understand what, what it means to the sort of sacrifice I can understand what it means to be grateful. I can understand what it means to be patient. I can understand what it means to be, understanding of the opposing view. I can understand what it means to suffer with, with great virtue and great moral being. I can understand what it means to be of high, moral character, that all these ideas, if you send to you and I'm letting go of, of the politics and of the, the history and, everything else that a lot of people complain about,
Dr. Shah-Haque
28:44 - 29:47
I can attest that. I think you hit the nail on the head with that. And so what does that have to do with burnout And I think that a big, positive barrier against burnout of having the inner interfaith, this inner dialogue, the spirituality, again, it is one of those building blocks of resilience, but also as a physician, if we understand that on the other side, there are things that we do not understand, and we do not, we cannot explain at least currently then that allows us to open the door to being human and saying shedding the ego and saying, I don't know. And even embracing that and being very comfortable with saying, I don't know, here I am giving you this vulnerability. When you say I'm a physician, I should know everything I don't, because I don't think we even understand physiologically everything. That's, you know, everything currently. that's the reason why it's a science, it's an evolving, it's an evolving.
Dr. Al-Hakim
29:48 - 30:21
Yeah. I mean, I'm find that, you know, you know, with, with more clinical practice, I'm saying, I don't know, more and more I've rarely said this is, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, I do say it, but you know, when you get individuals and then you get into gray areas and, you know, people come and see you for the gray areas. Yes. You know, you know, the clear cut stuff is it's pretty clear cut and it doesn't reach me. The ones that reach me are sort of in the gray areas. And my first answer is, I don't know. And then we, and then we go from there.
Dr. Shah-Haque
30:22 - 30:22
Right.
Dr. Al-Hakim
30:23 - 31:16
Right. And you know, that kind of does make you, I think it makes you more resilient, to be honest, if you can say, I don't know. Yes. And then, you know, work from the, and yeah. It just allows you to have that more, truthful relationship. not that I'm saying, I know the truth, but you know, I know when I'm telling a lie, that's much easier to discern. Yeah. There's lots of great. I mean, even not Somalia, there's lots of gray areas. You, don't going to be surprised to hear. and you just sort of sit there and scratch your head and say, I don't know what the hell is going on, but Hey, you know, I've got this idea, I've got that idea. What do you think of this And, and then you sort of go from there. so yeah, and I think that's, that's very much not in the, physical sphere at all.
Dr. Al-Hakim
31:17 - 32:04
And it's sort of more into the, the feelings fair and the, yeah, but I mean, I mean, I think it, you know, it does build resilience and I think if it does build resilience, other, other doctors can see that, you know, you are resilient and you're still yourself and you're still, you know, seeing 30, 40 patients a day. So they start asking the questions and, I think it builds a resilient workforce. you know, rather than, you know, pointing the finger at the system and talking about the system, I think does, produce resilient individuals who are, who are able to create the revolutions needed
Dr. Shah-Haque
32:05 - 33:44
Sure. No, I I've seen that with, with my own practice, you know, very early on after residency was very going in with business casual and then a coin flipped. I can't remember the, catalyst, but I said, forget this. I can wear scrubs. I can wear cowboy boots. And like nine months out of the year, I can wear my leather jacket. which, which I'm all about, you know, the dark colors and, and, I have, I have a thing for leather jackets. You can open up my closet, but that allowed me to, to quote queen the band. It allowed me to break free, you know, allowed me to break free patients of actually once we lowered the formality, because if you walk in, in crux, or if you walk in, in scrubs or cowboy boots, I think it gives an element of number one. We're not just all pomp and circumstance. Number two, we have a sense of individuality, which humanizes physicians, which opens up the door to Richard dialogue. And then remember everybody in the patient's seat is also very vulnerable. Nobody likes being a patient. So by saying, I don't know, and as physicians showing our vulnerability and that comes from a place of confidence to share that, because that is definitely not on the script with, in medical school or, you know, post grad training, most patients appreciate the honesty.
Dr. Al-Hakim
33:45 - 34:06
Yeah. I mean, some of them love the formality and love, you know, the whole a hundred percent certainty and, you know, God-like status and, you know, that's fine. You know, we can't change that. but we can certainly flip into God mode. You know, I don't have any, problems with that whatsoever.
Dr. Shah-Haque
34:06 - 34:10
Th this is true. This is true. Second nature.
Dr. Al-Hakim
34:10 - 34:37
Yeah. Yeah. It was like, you know, all, all the old gene switching on, again, they're very much there. but we also need the dark side of the moon as well. So yes, I think that's why it's important to have these, pluses and the minuses. Right. but in my experience, yeah. I mean, it's easy to be the plus it's a bit more, yeah. It needs a bit more conscious work.
Dr. Shah-Haque
34:37 - 34:38
Sure. You know,
Dr. Al-Hakim
34:39 - 34:43
De dealing with the negatives and being, being a negative yourself.
Dr. Shah-Haque
34:44 - 34:53
Well, thank you for your time today. And is there anything that you would like to add any last pro wisdom that you would like to leave the listener with
Dr. Al-Hakim
34:53 - 36:22
No wisdoms whatsoever. It's like, just enjoy yourself and, and, yeah. You know, weigh your leather stuff and just enjoy it, man. Just, yeah. Life's too short. Otherwise, don't you agree, Dr.
Dr. Shah-Haque
35:10 - 35:25
I agree. A hundred percent life is too short to be put in a box and to want to live in a, in a society where everybody else tries to dictate who you should be, except you. So, no, I, I got it.
Dr. Al-Hakim
35:25 - 35:28
Yeah. It adds to that. Yeah. Cherries to that cherries to that.
Dr. Shah-Haque
35:29 - 35:37
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