On Thanksgiving Eve (11/22), I received this email:
“I wanted to send you an anonymous tip of an internal medicine resident at Lewis Katz Temple University, [name redacted], who recently attempted suicide by overdose. My heart hurts for her and her family. She is currently in the ICU fighting for her life after many years of burnout. Please help.”
I spent days contemplating how best to help the anonymous author (who left no contact information) and also how to help the young physician fighting for her life. I felt such despair that she did not contact my free suicide helpline before she entered the ICU. I wished she would have spoken with me or joined our physician peer support group, or been inspired to live after reading any of the books/articles I’ve written on how to thrive during residency with her heart, soul, and dreams intact. After devoting the last 12 years of my life to doctor suicide prevention, I wondered what else I could do now to help . . .
I decided to host a Sunday Prayer Circle today. As a group of physicians we prayed for her wounded soul. We began with a 10-minute guided meditation Then I dedicated a poem to her recovery.
Prayer Circle Meditation
In deep gratitude this Thanksgiving weekend we come together in our Prayer Circle to share our abundance and appreciation of life. We calm our minds and open our hearts to the immense healing power of love ❤️.We come together as spiritual beings to share our human experience of healing. As wounded healers we connect deeply with the wounds of others as we pray for healing. We open our hearts and souls to allow the limitless healing energy within us to flow toward our wounded sister in medicine. We send our loving energy to embrace our sister as she heals in Philadelphia “The City of Brotherly Love.” May every cell in her body feel our love flowing to her. May she feel enlivened by the life-giving energy we send to her. We trust in the universal spirit of all that is good that our healing energy is delivered. For the good of all and receptivity of all and so may it be ❤️. Thank you.
Physician Suicide Survivor Poem
As the leaves fall
Awaiting your call
Instead an anonymous tip
A doctor suicide
Attempt, still alive
Survived her OD
Internal medicine
A resident
ICU
Your melancholy smile
Mysterious private eyes
Your fairytale beauty cries
Humility, scientific curiosity
Exhausted empathy
Overworked perfectionist
Hidden artist tortured
Inside a doctor of medicine
Holding your diploma
A dream come true!
For who?
For validation
Reputation
Security
Love
ICU
Good girl trophy child
Woman with a wild creative side
Deep spirituality, intuition
Your feminine imagination
In captivity during residency
Sleep-deprived, traumatized
By your job to save lives
Now your only job
To save one precious life
Your sprite soul
Enveloped in
Dusty rose
Pixie dust
Pure love
💕
We then shared our thoughts and feelings:
“I can see her in the ICU bed in my Mind’s Eye—I somehow have a gut intuition she will recover.”
“I felt very tearful at the beginning of this, from first seeing the image you created. I feel she must be so exhausted and sad. I felt a lot of relief after we prayed for her. I hope she can somehow feel it too.”
“O God! Refresh and gladden my spirit. Purify my heart. Illumine my power. I lay all my affairs in Thy hand. Thou art my Guide and my Refuge. I will no longer be sorrowful and grieved, I will be a happy and joyful being. O God! I will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will I let trouble harass me. I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life. O God! Thou art more friend to me than I am to myself. I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord.”
“At the beginning of the Circle, I received images: hearts, star, talking/writing, book, heart/GI, a young woman being outstanding and going forward in Medicine, it not being what she wanted but family was very proud of her. She ran out of energy.”
“I was hit with an overwhelming rush of tears. I feel that she was overwhelmed and sobbing. I think she didn’t know what to do with the tears and just wanted the crying to stop. I think she felt broken open.”
“May the one who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, bless and heal the resident who is ill. May the Blessed Holy One be filled with compassion for her health to be restored and her strength to be revived. May God swiftly send her a complete renewal of body and spirit, and let us say, Amen.”
“Are you able to send that beautiful poem to her family?”
“Maybe send it to the ICU doctor there. Perhaps to have someone read it to her. Or some version of it.”
I am publishing our well wishes for her to read when the time is right. Until then we send our love and support to her ethereally.
[Caveat: We can never demand that she receive and/or accept our prayers. Her destiny is determined by the free will of her soul’s sacred journey and must be respected.]