In a prior post I talked about Dr Tait Shanafelt and their work suggesting that performing at least 20% of the work you love is a way to reduce the risk of burnout and feeling fulfilled by our medical work. How do we find that patient or problem that we love to help with and were we feel we really make a difference?
Particularly as general practitioners, the door is always open to all comers so it can feel that we don’t have a choice about who we see. Although I agree it can be harder to filter completely, a GPwSI can create an attractive space for their ideal patient and the appointment books fill up with them. Then if a few of the less ideal patients make up the other appointments our energy levels will be equal to the task as our favourite work sustains us.
I feel there are a few options here to identify your ideal patient (avatar in marketing speak).
There can simple visceral reactions – seeing a patient with a specific problem on your appointment book and smiling on the inside, knowing you can help them. You would be happy to come in of a morning and have a whole day booked up with these patients. You are not drained by these patients, you have many ways to help them and are motivated to create templates, handouts and process to help you care for that problem.
This is sometimes described as a flow state – when do you not notice time fly by? There was a good discussion about this on the Flying Solo podcast.
There can be more reflective processes. Jo Muirhead, an Australian Rehabilitation counsellor who wrote a book The Entrepreneurial Clinician provides some worksheets with the book that ask you list 150 factors about your ideal patient.
There can be external proof – do colleagues know that I have extra skills in a certain area and refer patients to me? Do patients from a particular group self-refer or come via word of mouth?
When are you most productive? This can be a tricky one as with some niche work there are great direct results to the patient in front of us (skin cancer, weight loss, abortion care) and immediate feedback that we have helped. Where as some of the harder work like long term chronic care is much harder to quantify in benefit and the achievements are spread over a very long time. I do feel my niche work is productive and efficient – I do more of it, I have better process and workflows.
There can be financial proofs – if dollars are just appreciation tokens, who is so happy with your work that you receive more appreciation tokens from?
These reflections all allow us to think about our idea person to help and then we can think about where they area, how to we find and reach them and get them to trust us so we can help them.