Knowing You

As-salamu’alaykum,

Are you the nurse that colleagues turn to when they are going through a stressful patient encounter? the physician that has a knack for settling patients and families down after poorly delivered “bad news” by another colleague or a specialist? the member of the healthcare team that confidently speaks up about important things during team meetings that no one wants to broach because of its sheer sensitivity?

If you are already in this elite club, then chances are that you have a decent understanding of how you “show up” in the world around you - with your family, your patients and their families, your colleagues and other members of the healthcare team.

For many of us though, we are not quite there yet. We are not in tune with how we interact with those around us, the type of energy that we bring to the team and how we are perceived by others. This type of self-focused insight is extremely useful when you work in a highly complex environment where emotions run high such as pertains in many healthcare settings.

Islam also places a premium on a deep sense of self understanding as is encouraged through practicing reflective exercises such as Muhasabah (taking regular inventory of our thoughts, intentions, and actions) because of the inherent potential to help us all on our journey of behavior transformation.

Prophet Muhammad PBUH teaches us the value of managing ourselves to have productive interactions with others in this hadith;

It was narrated from Ibn ‘Umar that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: “He who mixes with people and is patient with them is better than the one who avoids the people and doesn’t have patience with them.” Source: Sunan Ibn Majah 4032 Grade: Sahih (Darussalam)

Our capacity to deal with others gracefully especially under duress is a function of our awareness of our default approach to people and how we manage that inherent tendency during these interactions. That internal awareness is a function of our emotional intelligence. Shaykh Mikaeel Ahmed Smith in his book, “With The Heart in Mind”, writes that “fruitful and positive interaction is dependent upon emotional understanding” - it is a skill that we appreciate from the life of the best example for all of us, Prophet Muhammad PBUH, and one that we all should strive towards in order to elevate our interaction with people around us - at home and at work. 

In healthcare, the ramifications of this emotional understanding and intelligence are significant with the potential to impact patient outcomes. How would you feel as a healthcare worker on the other side of the care divide - as a patient - when a clinician visits with you and you get a sense that this individual does not seem to “care” about you? It sets a negative precedence for the potential to build trust in that patient-clinician relationship.

Jerome E. Groopman, M.D. the Chair of Medicine at Harvard Medical School wrote in his book “How Doctors Think”: “What is remarkable is not merely the consequences of a doctor’s negative emotions. Despite research showing that most patients pick up on the physician’s negativity, few of them understand its effect on their medical care.” None of us went into healthcare to negatively impact patient outcomes but these subtleties that we are not taught in training do impact many aspects of our career and patient care. Emotional intelligence is measured as the emotional quotient and many studies have correlated a high EQ with higher job satisfaction, lower burnout and greater patient satisfaction among healthcare workers.

We all owe it to ourselves, to our families, to the people we work with and the patients we interact with to upgrade our emotional intelligence. It is a skill that can be learned with an intentional approach to cultivating it, Alhamdulillah.

Today, I am inviting you to consider 2 things on your journey to knowing yourself and investing in your future - better - versions, in sha Allah! 

1. Consider taking a behavioral style assessment such as the DISC profile.

A behavior style assessment can help you gain insights about how you show up in the world and help you understand how you are perceived by others. The key consideration is to have an open mind as you approach the assessment and especially the results; they give you a baseline to begin to understand how you interact with others. There are several free options to consider when you do a routine google search. I am including one option here for ease of access but not necessarily recommending this over other options out there. The same goes for the EIQ assessment that I have shared below.

2. Take the next step with an Emotional Intelligence Assessment 

This is a critical step on your journey to cultivating self awareness which is the foundation of emotional intelligence. The insights you glean from this exercise will be very helpful for you as you work on how to improve the quality of your interactions at work with positive ripple effects in your other regular interactions at home and in the community, in sha Allah.

This journey of knowing ourselves has profound implications in this life and the next for us as muslim healthcare workers. We have a duty to be good ambassadors of our faith, Islam, by showing up as increasingly better versions of ourselves, with Allah’s help, and improving the outlook of the interactions we have at work and with those who are vulnerable and depending heavily on us in healthcare. It is a journey of character reform which weighs heavily on our scales on the day of judgment and is aligned with our pursuit of the excellent example of our beloved Prophet Muhammad PBUH as Allah reminds us in the Qur’an below;

Surah Al-Qalam (Ch. 68): v4; “And you are truly ˹a man˺ of outstanding character.

Surah Al-Ahzab (Ch. 33): v21; “Indeed, in the Messenger of Allah you have an excellent example for whoever has hope in Allah and the Last Day, and remembers Allah often.”

In sha Allah, the above steps will help you jump start or continue your trajectory of continuous improvement and specifically, begin to hone your sense of self awareness as you cultivate emotional intelligence and improve your overall resilience and burn-out proof your career in healthcare all while seeking refinement of character that is incredibly pleasing to Allah. 

May Allah SWT assist us all on our journeys towards Him and grant us success in this life and the hereafter. Ameen. 

Please do share your feedback or any thoughts on how you are interfacing with this context. BaarakAllahu feek.