We were proud to spotlight select ACP physician well-being resources in the 2021 issues of the Global Newsletter. This issue features the experiences of a Well-being Champion from ACP India.
If you have an ACP chapter in your region and are interested in Well-being Champion training and being involved in your chapter's Well-being Committee, please contact your Chapter Governor.
Prof. Anuj Maheshwari, MD, FICP, FIACM, FIMSA, FACP, FACE, FRCP (London, Edinburgh), is Governor of the ACP India Chapter and Professor and Head of the Department of Medicine, BBD University, in Lucknow. He has been in clinical practice for over 18 years and his special interests include: Diabetes Mellitus and Complications, Obesity, Metabolic disorders, Thyroid disorders, Hypertension, and Wellness.
In your experience, what are the causes of physician burnout and its impact on Indian physicians' daily lives?
“Indian physicians work in tough situations facing heavy workloads due to poor doctor-patient ratio in population, poor hygiene, and educational status among people with a lot of myths regarding modern medicine. More number of patients, more diseases, and higher pressure from authorities push Indian doctors to burn out despite being passionate to work.”
What initially interested you in the ACP Well-being Champion program?
“The ACP Well-being Program was designed for doctors and health care workers' own physical and mental health, which is very much needed in a country with a population of one billion. Doctors hardly get any time to take care of themselves. The ACP Well-being Champion program is focused on preparing doctors to create awareness for well-being by educational programs and their own examples of living well.”
Describe your well-being training experience with ACP.
“It has not only been a learning experience, but I also got an opportunity to share my own thoughts to my class as well as my trainers. Later I got an opportunity to take sessions on various aspects of well-being during the annual conference.”
How has your chapter incorporated well-being into its programming?
“Our chapter has decided to run an educational WELLNESS CAPSULE containing five chapters on: 1) Physical Health, 2) Spiritual wellness, Relaxation and Sleep, 3) Nutrition, 4) Deaddiction, 5) Mindset of helping out first yourself. We are planning to take this program to members of ACP India chapter.”
Please share a successful program you recently executed in your chapter or residency program.
“We organized a well-being update for doctors in our country on our national Doctor's Day combined with felicitation of doctors who performed outstanding during COVID duties. Dr. Priya Radhakrishnan and Dr. Mukta Panda made their deliberations virtually, which was concluded by our ex-governor Dr. Muruganathan. It was a challenging task to have a gathering for such a kind of program in India where we are not having any scientific discussion. Usually, we do scientific discussions on diseases to update colleagues so they can better serve their patients but on Doctor's Day it was thought to talk for their own well-being. 886 doctors attended this program virtually on 1st July 2021 which was a huge success.”