#ResilientResidencyInsights 4 - Don't let your Salah slip away

As-salamu alaykum,

You hit the ground running on day #1 of residency on the busiest rotation for your specialty and as a highly motivated intern, you are keen to support your residents and attendings in every way possible.

You attend to scutwork gracefully and you connect with patients and staff with a rookie smile that has eluded them for the past 6 months. 

The busy morning hours rollover into a long stretch until you are finally able to grab a bite somewhere towards the end of the lunch period.

You look around and wonder if you are the only one thinking what you are thinking - when will we get a break?

You continue to wear the smile but it gets harder as the first week of residency rolls over into the 2nd week.

In the midst of it all, you notice a trend where you are really struggling to find a good spot for your Salah and as though that was not enough - it's also being pushed to the near transition point to the next prayer and sometimes till the end of your work day. 

This train of events may be unfamiliar to some (thankfully) but for others sounds all too familiar. 

This was my struggle in my first few weeks to months of Intern year. 

I had not prepared an upstream game plan for my Salah. And here I was with my Salah literally slipping away.

I was falling for a trick of the Shaytan - deprioritize Salah (think self-care) and do everything under the sun to meet the unspoken expectations of your residents, attendings and others in the mix.

This is a recipe for burnout my friends!

While Salah has clear spiritual implications for the Muslim, it also plays a central role in our resilience armamentarium because;

1. It is an integral part of the Muslim identity.

2. Grounds the Muslim to their sense of purpose in life 

3. It provides the distinctive opportunity for an intimate conversation with our creator, Allah, the Most High wherein Muslims draw strength and resilience

4. When focus on Allah and the words uttered in prayer are optimized, some studies have shown that Salah influences brain regions associated with emotion regulation in ways that reduce anxiety

As a busy healthcare worker at a crucial point in your career a.k.a. residency, you will want to leverage the inherent benefits of Salah in helping you get through this journey in a burnout-proof manner while also fulfilling a religious obligation that when fulfilled even without optional prayers brings us closer to our creator and further enriches our journey of healthcare work and life outside of work by Allah’s will.

Consider the following in your burnout-proofing Salah game plan;

1. Make the sincere intention to hold on to your Salah

2. Scope out your program and proactively ask for prayer spaces (or call rooms)

3. Seek “intel” from senior colleagues on how they have navigated this historically (or online/social media communities)

4. Find like-hearted companions who prioritize Salah and leverage the group effect

5. Be open with your non-Muslim colleagues about your Salah times and you will find them to be excellent allies in your effort to preserve your Salah

6. Be mindful of the tricks of Shaytan with regards to deprioritizing your Salah when there are no real emergencies.

7. Make sincere Du’a to Allah often to help keep you firm in this regard and to make the transition and journey easy for you

Friends and colleagues, remember that the essence of your journey in healthcare work is to serve humanity and earn Allah’s pleasure while doing so with the ultimate destination of Jannah front and center. May Allah count us among the people of Jannah (Amin).

The Salah is the primal criterion on which that success lies as Prophet Muhammad PBUH reminds us in the following hadith;

Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The first action for which a servant of Allah will be held accountable on the Day of Resurrection will be his prayers. If they are in order, he will have prospered and succeeded. If they are lacking, he will have failed and lost. If there is something defective in his obligatory prayers, then the Almighty Lord will say: See if My servant has any voluntary prayers that can complete what is insufficient in his obligatory prayers. The rest of his deeds will be judged the same way.” [Source: Sunan al-Tirmidhī 413]

May Allah, the Most High, grant you and us the Tawfiq (capacity) to remain steadfast with regards to our Salah during these best of days and beyond. Amin. 

Sincerely,

Sulyman

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