Finding Deliberate Calm in the Chaotic World of Healthcare

As-salamu alaykum,

A Chaos-laden Healthcare World

As healthcare professionals, we navigate innumerable pressures - complex patient care within even more complicated care delivery systems and an ever evolving economic and political landscape - all of which take a toll on our mental health, overall well-being and our performance at the bedside.

For the American Muslim community, the stakes may have even been kicked up a notch following the recent election of President Trump.  My nephew in the UK captured this poignantly when he shared with my sister: “I feel sorry for Uncle Dolapo, he’s a Muslim and he lives in America”. 

In a world where our integrated work-lives juxtapose these extraneous challenges, finding resilience and deliberate calm isn’t optional - it’s essential.

So how do we get past the chaos and stay focused with resilience and deliberate calm? 

Prophetic Wisdom 

Abu Hurayrah RA reported that the Prophet Muhammad PBUH said: “It is from the excellence of an individual’s Islam that he leaves La ya‘ni (those things which do not benefit him)” Tirmidhi Hadith 12, 40 Hadith an-Nawawi

Practical Implications 

You and I, like many of our colleagues in healthcare, likely have a ton of stuff on our plates. How do we then find deliberate calm and essential focus on the few key things that count so that we don’t find ourselves stretched too thin and risk losing ourselves in the chaos.

1. Start with Allah

The essential focus of our integrated work-lives as defined by our creator is His worship. 

Making space for this unequivocal reality will help us prioritize the habits and routines that orient us towards Allah while deprioritizing life distractions that take us out of this fold. Nurture the pillars of your day - Salah and a connection with the Quran - that preserve your divine orientation.

2. Protect the first “hour” of your day.

Consistent with #1 above, is placing guardrails around the 1st hour of your day as a ME space for solitude, worship and reflection. This will enable you to find clarity in your purpose and remain steadfast with the essentials in your life.

3. Define your priorities.

Spend time with yourself or with a few trusted parties or even a coach to explore your priorities for your integrated work-life. Your deen/success in the hereafter. Your Family. Your Health. Your Social Support. Your body of work. 

4. Identify Key Distractions

We often don’t spend enough time here. I certainly can improve in this area as well. Pause and think through your days to identify and eliminate or reduce key distractions. We are all experts on what these are for us. The key thing is to recognize them for what they are and to take action.

5. Find peace with saying “No”

The word “No” comes across with a negative connotation but it is one the most essential tools for managing chaos and finding deliberate calm. Finding peace with “No” or some variation of it is the result of clarity on your essential areas of focus.

Colleagues and friends - this is a struggle for all of us but it's one that we must approach with intention and slowly build forward. The reality of chaos without deliberate calm is overwhelm - anxiety - poor decisions - suboptimal clinical effectiveness and patient outcomes - and ultimately burnout. 

Not positioning Allah at the center of our integrated work-lives is a recipe for ultimate loss in the hereafter. Not where any of us want to be so the time to act is now. 

May Allah, the Most High, grant us the essential focus on what is pleasing to Him in our service to humanity through the healthcare space and beyond. Amin 

Sincerely,

Sulyman

P.S. If you were forwarded this email, then please click the link below to subscribe to the newsletter: https://sakeenahmd-newsletter.beehiiv.com/subscribe