Positive growth from the COVID-19 pandemic [PODCAST]

Listen and followApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

“The pandemic has been difficult, but it has managed to change my perspective for the better. I mourn for the suffering and loss we have experienced as humanity, and moving forward, I have a new sense of appreciation. I am hopeful for the future, and I know we are in this together. We should try to focus on appreciation, resilience, adaptability, and self-discipline. This is the most difficult time to do it as it seemingly has been forced upon us, but if we do not try it now, then when?

As you read this, I want to know how the pandemic affected you directly. What have you improved upon, what have you grown to appreciate even more? I think we can all learn from each other, and if we focus on our resilience and some positivity, it may be a little easier to move forward and focus on hope for our future.”

Jasmine Toor is an internal medicine physician.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, “Positive growth from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Did you enjoy today’s episode?

Please click here to leave a review for The Podcast by KevinMD. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app to get notified when a new episode comes out!

Do you know someone who might enjoy this episode? Share this episode to anyone who wants to hear health care stories filled with information, insight, and inspiration.

Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. My name is Kevin Pho, founder and editor of KevinMD. Here on the show, we have Jasmine Toor. She is an internal medicine physician, and she wrote the KevinMD article “Positive growth from the COVID-19 pandemic.” Jasmine, welcome to the show.

Jasmine Toor: Thank you so much, Kevin. Appreciate it.

Kevin Pho: We’ll get into your article in a little bit, but first off, can you share your story and your journey to where you are today?

Jasmine Toor: Sure. So I’m originally from Canada, born and raised just outside of Toronto. I did my residency in Baltimore, Maryland, and that’s where I’ve stayed. I’ve been working as faculty in internal medicine, in an inpatient and outpatient role, for about three and a half years. I’ve always loved science, how the human body works. I love arts and creativity, and that’s what brings me to my pastime of writing different articles and opinion pieces, just the creative aspect. I also really enjoy lifestyle medicine, exercise and its benefits on health, and I try to practice that in my own practice. And I appreciate you having me here today.

Kevin Pho: So we’re talking in the middle of January, and we’re in the midst of possibly the worst wave of the pandemic. Tell me what you’re seeing from your perspective, whether it’s in the hospital or in your clinic, as it relates to the pandemic.

Jasmine Toor: With my job, I have two different sides of things. I have the primary care side and an inpatient side, so I’m seeing a very wide variety of things, and from different directions. I’ve also had a family member who lost his life to the virus, and it’s been tough, so I also have that perspective on things. It’s been really tough.

I think the hardest thing for me, when I work inpatient, has been just seeing the frustration and the loneliness of patients. We are their family. We are the people who are there face to face. They get to FaceTime and video chat and those types of things, but it’s definitely not the same. So I’m trying to take every moment I can to spend the extra minute, just ask how they’re doing and what they need, because they don’t have that type of connection that they can have from their family. So we are their human connection.

From the outpatient side, it’s been hard. Someone said something interesting to me. I’ve lost several of my clinic patients. I’ve had them for the last three and a half years, a lot of them, and they lost their lives to the COVID-19 infection. It’s been really hard, because you develop kind of a sense of family from that perspective, and that’s the hardest part for me. Someone said to me, “Why do you know so much about your patients?” I said, “Well, because I’m their primary care doctor.” So that’s been the hardest thing. I know their family members. Sometimes I’m the doctor of their whole family. I know what they did for Christmas or New Year’s, those types of things.

One of my patients, and this was probably the one that hit me the most, used to call me every time a medication was recalled, just when he heard the news, to let me know. He was so careful, and that’s the thing. It’s been rough, because sometimes you’re just trying to be careful, and you can still get hit with it, and it’s been hard.

The hospitals are really, really busy, at full capacity where we are, too. I don’t do ICU, but I do the intermediate care unit, and people are there for 20 days, 10 days, three weeks, a month, just trying to recover from this. So I think what I’m trying to do is just be there as a doctor and as a person who cares about their well-being, emotionally and health-wise, through all of this.

Kevin Pho: Wonderful. And let’s transition now into your KevinMD article, “Positive growth from the COVID-19 pandemic.” Now, for those who didn’t read that article, can you just walk my audience through it and share the story of why you decided to write it?

Jasmine Toor: The main reason why I chose to write the article was just because it’s been a struggle for me, just like it has for so many people. I have two sides of things. I have the normal human reaction to it, and I have the work side, which is also increased stress. So there’s stress in both my personal and business life. I’ve had a hard time in the beginning dealing with it, just like everybody else has. I’m the type of person who likes to go out and do things when I have a stressful day. I want to go for dinner, or talk with my friends and family and see my family, or go to the gym, or go outside and exercise or go for a run, those types of things. It’s been hard, because everything that I knew to be what I do to de-stress was quickly taken away. So I had to re-evaluate my whole game plan.

So you have two things. You have increased stress in your life and work, and then you have the lack of ability to de-stress in the normal ways that you can. They’re both very counterproductive to each other. So the hardest thing for me was just to figure out a new way to move forward with life, and that’s kind of what brought the article on. It’s our mindset, I think, that’s going to get us through it, and positive thinking. It’s so easy not to think positively, because I didn’t in the first couple of months. We hit the thing: Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening? Why can’t I do what I want? Everybody is in the same boat together, and I think flipping the frame of mind is the main thing that’s going to get us through this in a positive way and allow us to grow through the adversity that everybody is facing, like resilience.

Kevin Pho: So can you give us an example of a story of a time where you tried to turn something around and look at it from a positive mindset?

Jasmine Toor: It’s one of the things I also wrote about in my article. I live in a pretty nice neighborhood. You can go on walks and things like that, but I never did. I would go exercise at the gym. I wouldn’t really meet my neighbors, because all the houses are spread out. I think I took the time now. OK, I can’t really go to the gym safely, or they were closed in the beginning, and I still don’t feel fully comfortable, just because I work in the hospital and everything, too. So I took the time: “You know what, I’m going to go on a walk.” I met my neighbors from a distance. We talked to each other. I got to learn about my neighborhood. I went on more walks in the first couple of months than I did probably in three years of living in this area. So it changed my perspective, that even though I have one way of doing things, there are other ways to achieve the same goal. You just have to frame your mind a little bit differently.

I like painting, but typically we’re always running around outside, going to this person’s house or that dinner or that restaurant, or watching a movie outside, whatever it is. Sometimes it’s nice just to take it slow and stop and smell the roses, as they say. I’ve been able to do those types of things, and you’d be surprised how well it de-stresses you, and all you think about is painting and nothing else. So those types of things really made a big change.

I’ve just been working on slowing things down, because in the whole world, we move fast. Everybody is fast-paced, thinking, “What’s next? What’s next to do?” But sometimes you can get healing and just happiness from the simpler things, just like we did when we were kids. If you give us a cardboard box and you put some holes and windows in it, it’s fun for hours. But now we don’t. We always have more complicated ways to have fun. So I think the process that I’ve been working on is how to simplify it and do it safely, but completely flip my mindset about why. Not “Why me? Why is this happening? Why is this happening to everybody?” More like “What can I do to grow from this and learn from this and appreciate things more?”

Kevin Pho: So as physicians, a lot of us are totally consumed with what we do clinically, especially someone like you, who has to work in both an inpatient and outpatient setting. So how difficult was it for you to slow down and reframe your perspective to a more positive mindset?

Jasmine Toor: It was difficult in the beginning, because most physicians and people in the medical field are type A personalities who need organization and like to have control over their lives. And the thing is, too, when you’re a primary care doctor, when you go home, your patients are your patients. You think about them. You worry about them when they’re hospitalized. When I’m working in the hospital, things are still happening to my patients. They’re still struggling and having hard times with everything, just like we are. So it was hard in the beginning, but at some point, you just have to say, “You know what,” and you stop feeling sorry for yourself. I didn’t feel sorry for myself; it was more just for society, how difficult this is for every single person. I can’t imagine.

The number one thing that I thought, right from the beginning, was I’m so thankful to still have my job. That was the main thing. I have my patients. I feel it’s so hard, just emotionally; my heart goes out to anybody who lost their job or has financial issues, because although it’s scary to go to work, I have a job that I can, and I don’t have to worry about those types of things. I can’t even imagine if it was the other way. I think thinking about that, and just stopping anytime I start getting sidetracked, “Oh no, this is terrible, I can’t go do fun things.” I have my job, I have my health, and I need to appreciate that, because not everybody got to have those two things. People lost their lives in this, and also people lost their jobs and are struggling in different ways. I can’t even imagine. So I think that’s the number one way I just appreciated everything and was able to keep a positive mindset.

We just have to be thankful. I have been a person who always appreciates and has gratitude for everything that I’ve been given in my life, but this really brings you to that point where we have to be thankful for what we have and grateful for what we’ve been given. And I use that kind of energy to move forward in a positive way.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Jasmine Toor. She is an internal medicine physician, and she wrote the KevinMD article “Positive growth from the COVID-19 pandemic.” Jasmine, can you share some tips and advice for your fellow frontline clinician colleagues, and nurses, for that matter, on how they can proceed going forward?

Jasmine Toor: I think the most important thing is to just try to work on the mindset. It’s very easy for negative thoughts and the stress to get to us, and a lot of us have to completely reframe the way that we de-stress, but it’s important to at least try. In the beginning, we just go home and say, “I’m so tired,” and go to sleep and don’t do anything. But we have to do things to de-stress, because burnout was high before, and now it’s through the roof and skyrocketing. I can see it around people, just everyone around me, and I feel the same way, too. But I’m trying to make a conscious effort to do things that will help me with my stress levels and enjoy and feel joy in different ways.

I have told several of my colleagues and the residents, when I’m rotating with them on service, that it’s important to put your health first. A healthy mind helps us take care of our patients better. We can give more support to our patients, with our brains as well as emotionally. So physically, emotionally, it won’t drain you as much if you take care of yourself.

When you go home, I think one thing to do, whatever it is, you just have to sit down. Someone gave me a piece of advice early on in the pandemic, which I thought was really interesting, and I shared it in my article. It was to remember when we were kids, and that’s what I was mentioning earlier, too, that the simplest things gave us enjoyment. Why don’t you write those things down? Put down 10 things you used to do when you were younger that you did for fun and enjoyment, and just try them again and see what happens. You’d be surprised.

We used to have a telescope growing up. I bought a telescope, but it’s amazing, now I have adult telescope skills, so it’s different. So you appreciate different things, and it kind of brings you back to childhood. I loved painting when I was a child. Of course, the paintings have gotten better, with Bob Ross videos, those types of things. Just find what you love and haven’t had time to do, and start doing it again. That’s what I would give them, because we lose our hobbies and our pastimes to medicine. We’re always working; we’re always thinking about work. But you have to consciously make the decision to say, “Remember those hobbies and things I used to do before all of this started,” not even the pandemic, but medical school, residency, working. Try to write those down. Go back to the things that you love, and that will really help make a difference in how you can care for yourself and your patients.

Kevin Pho: And my final question: What’s your take-home message you want to leave with the KevinMD audience?

Jasmine Toor: I think the main take-home that I wanted to leave for the audience, for those who did or didn’t read my article, is that it’s OK to feel the stress. We don’t have to ignore it or pretend it’s not there or try to just move past it. We need to just acknowledge that it’s there and do something about it. I think taking a proactive approach is the best thing, because with the pandemic, just like you said in the beginning, we are at the worst right now. We’ve lost just under 400,000 lives to this in the States, I believe, the last time I had looked at the statistics, and that is a real number. It is significant. I’m fortunate enough that I got my two-dose vaccine series. I survived it; it went fine. So I’m thankful for those things.

I think the main thing I would want people to do is acknowledge the stress and try to do something about it, and try to grow from this. It’s very easy, when we have adversity, to fall to it. I did in the beginning, and I still have hard days. It’s never easy, but you have to just proactively focus on resilience. If I learned one thing from all of this, it’s how resilient everybody can be. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from. You’d be surprised. Before, they used to say no one will ever be productive working from home. Look at everybody. Everyone is working from home, things are moving smoothly, life is going on. So I think just learning and focusing on appreciation, our own resilience, self-discipline, and re-evaluating the things that we enjoy and bringing back the things we enjoy into our lives is going to get us through this. And support each other as much as we can. When you see someone who’s having a hard time, talk to them about it. See what you can do to help, because that’s what we need to do to get through this together.

Kevin Pho: Well, thank you so much for sharing your time and insight, and thanks again for being on the show.

Jasmine Toor: Thank you. I appreciate it. Take care.

Listen and followApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes