After another mentally exhausting day at work, I'm finally in the open air, feeling the wind blow over me, bringing with it the scent of the horses at the stables. The odor is sweet and musky, mixed with the aroma of hay, grains and a hint of manure, yielding a pungent yet earthy fragrance. This is my place to be when I feel the need to revive my mental energy and soul.
When everything around me seems chaotic, coming here reminds me of basic, yet fundamental elements of humanity that we often overlook: grace, beauty and freedom.
Three children are in the arena practicing while I wait for my session to start in the next few minutes. I can feel my anxiety build up. I'm unsure if this uneasiness is because my session will start in a few minutes or if its due to a mental struggle that has decided to pursue me in the one place that I come to revitalize my mental energy. There's a nagging voice in my head, 'when are you going to quit your job?'. I have been trying to silence this voice for months, but it has defeated me. I have to attend to it.
As I wait for my session to start and observe the children riding blissfully, my mind takes me back to the hospital I work in, and the daunting environment. The passion and motivation I once held towards serving patients has dissolved. With time, my spirit towards my profession was amputated. The pain is immense, and unlike a limb, when the spirit is broken it can't be fixed with a prosthetic, can it?
Subconsciously I probably must have quit my job a while ago. The last two to three years have been filled with unpleasant experiences that have led to a roller coaster of emotions swaying between anger, resentment, sadness, boredom, apathy, and feeling alienated.
Working in a prominent position at a large hospital comes with its own set of challenges. Despite the vast opportunities to improve the services for the patients within my field of expertise, with time, I found myself feeling overwhelmed as I constantly felt like I had to go against the waves due to the dogmatic nature of the organization, which turns opportunities into hindrances, and this certainly exhausts me mentally. It seems as though the fabric of reality of this situation is twofold. On one hand are the ethics and morals I believe in, and on the other hand is the political field of the hospital, which presumably should lead towards favorable outcomes to the organization core values of cultivating improved patient centered care services. Yet I can sense a hidden force that redirects this outcome, albeit subconsciously. Somehow, it does not feel easy or natural to me to balance between the two fabrics of reality.
This political field is propagating in a way where it feels too precarious for me to sustain my interaction with the environment. It feels as though I’m constantly having to work hard to keep my head above the water to remain true to who I am and what I believe in to maintain my integrity and honor my own values and beliefs as a healthcare agent. The main focus, I believe, is to advance patient care services through utilizing expertise in the field of practice.
This struggle led me to question my priorities, competence, values, morals and ethics. Where do they all fit in within the healthcare organization? I can’t find them! Or maybe I just don’t fit in?
In my previous blog, I touched upon some of the politics at the workplace. I acknowledge that politics exists within most, if not all, organizations. Unfortunately, in my case, the political field directly impacted my perception of the value of being human and how I view healthcare agents in general. This invisible energy seems governed by a political field that craves to manipulate the game through false proclamations, consequently, changing the outcome of the game. The environment seems well designed to allow the stream of power and control to surpass the essence of patient care philosophies that ideally should be the dominating factor. It may not be flaunted, but it is the governed climate.
To illustrate this with a simple example, I was part of a project that involved a change in practice. Since I am an expert in my field, I identified a number of safety concerns that were overlooked by higher administrative managers in the hospital. However, that was deemed as me 'challenging' and 'resisting' the project progress. Ultimately, I was perceived as having limited capacity to continue working on the project! After several attempts, I was finally replaced by a junior member who lacked experience in the subject matter. I will not deny that it was painful. However, I will not give in to the pressures of administration and abandon the principles I adhere to, especially if I know they will have adverse consequences. Unfortunately, it’s all a power game.
l am currently part of this game that I can't avoid. The moment I chose my profession, I accepted all the rules and the politics that came with it, albeit subconsciously. Initially, the rules of the game seemed reasonable. I somehow managed, possibly because I was naive and wasn’t yet feeling the invisible external force that was governing the rules of the game. My perception of this unexplained hidden energy grew as I gained experience and exposure to the game.
It became apparent that the more I deflected from this unexplained hidden force, the more I was shunned, labelled, and misunderstood as disconnected from the organizational patient-centered care models. Needless to say, this made me feel detached, alienated and delusional. Yet, I was still expected to function normally.
I had to continue to work pretending I had no emotions or brains, like a programmed robot on auto-mode.
But I'm human. Have they forgotten that?
As a player, I find myself part of a devious game that I had not expected, but what makes it even more strenuous is that the majority perceive this game to be coherent.
This hidden unexplained force is what I'm finding difficult. I'm expected to deal with it as though it does not exist. I can't define this energy, making me wonder where I stand in this game. Should I continue to be part of this game? Should I leave? What is this hidden energy that is so powerful? Do I have any control over those hidden rules? Will I ever be able to identify those invisible forces that manipulate the rules and be able to challenge them? Or should I ignore them and pretend that they don't exist?
Maybe I never understood that an external force could influence rules to change the game outcome. Are those rules serving the game? Or is it serving the personal gains of the individuals? This hidden energy is beyond me, and I sense a revelation of losing my inner consciousness, of becoming someone I don't want to be if I stay in this game.
As I watch the children in front of me end their session, I can't help but wonder what the future holds for them. It is my turn now. Finally, my mind is silent as I focus on my horse and my riding session.
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