After coming to terms with the stress in my life as a busy suburban GP, I joined my local Doctors’ Health Advisory Service in 2002. One of the events this group organised late that year was a doctors’ health information evening. A panel of experts was arranged to speak on topics such as substance abuse, depression and suicide among doctors. Despite a thorough marketing campaign, only the organisers showed up! From this experience I concluded that doctors, probably like most people, prefer a positive message to a negative one.

One of the consequences of that evening was my development of a self-care workshop for doctors that I have conducted for three medical groups in Australia and New Zealand over the past year. The main objective of the workshops was to raise awareness of relevant stress and lifestyle issues (doctors have been shown to be a highly stressed group, with long working hours and poor habits in areas such as exercise). Other goals were to provide an experience of peer-group support and to help individual doctors develop strategies for changing their health behaviour.

At the most recent event, doctors were asked to identify two areas of self-care they wished to improve. They were then divided into three groups, based on what they perceived to be the principal barrier to making change: about half the participants chose to be in the group who lacked motivation, while equal numbers of the remainder chose either the group who feared change or the group who could not move past the expectations of others. No one felt that a lack of knowledge or skills was a barrier to making the changes.

Often after some heated dialogue, each of the groups came up with several strategies to overcome their perceived barrier to change. Many of those who lacked motivation felt all they needed was help and encouragement from a “buddy” to get them started. Others felt they would be more likely to succeed if the change process included a reward. The group that feared change reported that they needed to have more confidence to say no, to review their priorities with regard to earning money, and to stay on top of their overdeveloped work ethic. The group who felt the burden of others’ expectations concurred with the importance of learning to say no, and also perceived a need to clarify their priorities with regard to patients and family and to manage their time better. Both of these latter groups reported that the core issue seemed to relate to managing guilt rather than being controlled by it!

My most lasting memory of these events has been the great enthusiasm and resourcefulness of the doctor participants, who generally found the workshops enjoyable and helpful. It was good to see the notorious reluctance of doctors to seek help put aside and to note the ease with which warm and intelligent collegial support can be offered and received.