Dedicated Providers & Partners – this is for you, our more than 100 movement disorder specialists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other healthcare providers!
It struck me today while talking with my dentist about the burnout and suicide rate of medical providers that your patients seldom see life from your point of view. When people come through your door, they’re often scared, insecure, angry or despairing. They are of two minds, half a mind wanting every piece of information they can garner and half a mind wanting to pretend that the issue that brought them to you doesn’t really exist.
As you go about your work you constantly absorb, confront, direct and redirect intense emotions during the usually brief time that you can spend with each of your patients. They place great hope in you, full of anticipation that you can make life better for them. Most often, you do just that. Your expertise with treatments, therapies, and medications (new and old) are lifelines and gateways to inspiration and hope, your attentive presence consoling and reassuring and for that we all thank you.
We also thank you for taking time during your evenings, weekends, vacations, and early morning hours to research, learn, and explore treatment options and consider the overall disease process. Your compassion, as you show up every day to help improve the lives of others, greatly impacts not just your patients, but their loved ones as well.
I can only imagine the intense emotions you sift through every day. I am not only grateful, but also humbled by the generosity of spirit and care you offer. I am moved by the gifts you share with all of us.
Today, I hope we all take a moment to reflect on how the people who provide care for us express their care and compassion as you do – despite personal challenges, professional frustrations, and the myriad expectations and demands you hear from patients every day.
Sarah Jones, MPA, MS Strategic Design
CEO, PMD Alliance