We Can, but Should We?

We can, but should we? After recently reflecting upon our profession as pediatric critical care physicians , I concluded that this one complex question gets asked many times throughout the day – or at least it should. A recent report discussed an emerging paradigm in pediatric critical care medicine (1). With more and more chronic patients filling our pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), perhaps we should all stop and take a breath. Are we here to cure, or are we here to heal? My views regarding life and death have certainly evolved over the last 10 years – and I think this evolution has been for the better. Although I hesitate to preach how we, as pediatric critical care physicians, should interpret our hospital work given our varied cultural, familial, and experiential backgrounds, perhaps I can simply suggest that we need to. We are, after all, human beings who have emotions, relationships, goals, and, hopefully, a sense of vocation. Resiliency has become the new buzzword. Our pediatric residents are now embarking on resiliency training utilizing the Families OverComing Under Stress (FOCUS) program (2, 3). I have joined them. I recently filmed a piece chronicling my career and personal life particularly focusing on my time as an intensivist. Even though I tell my story, we want trainees to see that processing their own professional and personal timelines can put their career in perspective. Whether you enjoy watching a professional sports team or going out on date night to deal with the stresses of your professional life, that is not the point. The point is we need to model a healthy lifestyle for our trainees. What has recently concerned me, however, is the unhealthy, yet popular, strategy of completely separating one's work life from one's personal life. When we speak of work–life balance, the important term is " balance. " Just look at the medical students we teach. Over a 3-day period, I recently taught the basics of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to a group of 172 medical students. My colleague and I in rapid-fire 20-min sessions gave them just a taste of what we routinely do in the PICU. I cannot tell you how struck I was to see and hear their enthusiasm for medicine and their career choice. I hope they saw the same in me, but I know there are plenty in our field who are burnt out and should …