Volume 12, Number 2, 2025 Purpose in Healthcare

EN:

I share my story of how an unexpected diagnosis changed my lens in caring for my patients. This story shines a light on how narrative medicine tools employed by various healthcare professionals touch me as a patient, in turn, realizing how it trickled down to strengthen relationships with my patients as their comprehensive family physician. Narrative medicine permitted me to process my health journey and re-assess my values to gain new insights on how I derive meaning and purpose.

EN:

This commentary explores the evolution of the sense of purpose for a mental health professional navigating the tensions between personal vocation and systemic realities. With a tale of lived experience, the author dives into the dissonance she once felt between the values that drew her into the helping field and the institutional conditions that often undermine them. With empathy for the individual workers, the piece critically examines how systems shape care and credibility, while affirming the importance of compassion, creativity and collective purpose. Grounded in a commitment to remain present in the field, the essay calls for a more trauma-informed, sustainable practice of the helping professions - one that values both the providers and the people they serve.

FR:

Ce commentaire explore l'évolution du sens de la vocation chez une professionnelle de la santé mentale confrontée aux tensions entre engagement personnel et réalités systémiques. À travers le récit de son expérience vécue, l'autrice plonge dans la dissonance autrefois ressentie entre les valeurs qui l'ont attirée vers le travail en relation d'aide et les conditions institutionnelles qui les fragilisent souvent. Avec empathie pour les travailleur.euse.s du terrain, ce texte examine de manière critique la façon dont les systèmes influencent les pratiques de soin et la reconnaissance professionnelle, tout en réaffirmant l'importance de la compassion, de la créativité et du sens collectif. Ancré dans l'engagement à rester présente dans le domaine, cet essai appelle à une pratique des professions en relation d'aide plus durable et informée par les traumatismes - une pratique qui valorise autant les personnes prodiguant les soins que celles qui les reçoivent.

EN:

In this reflective narrative, a recent nursing graduate explores her evolving sense of purpose through key moments in her clinical experience. From early uncertainty to a powerful experience in the emergency department, the author discovers that purpose in healthcare is not found in a single revelation, but in the stillness of presence, compassion, and being trusted during life’s most sacred moments. “In the Stillness” offers a meditation on how showing up fully, during birth, death, and everything in between, can become the deepest expression of purpose in care.

EN:

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic caused a mandatory shift to virtual delivery of content in medical education. This study explored the benefits and limitations of a virtually delivered mindfulness curriculum as perceived by students and teachers. Our goal was to identify key concepts to consider for improving or implementing such a curriculum at the undergraduate medical education level.

Methods: This was a mixed methods research study. An online questionnaire was administered and focus group interviews were conducted. Conventional content analysis was used to code and derive themes from interview transcripts.

Results: The perceptions of 35 first- and second-year medical students and five mindfulness teachers were collected. A qualitative thematic analysis of interview transcripts identified positive features of virtual delivery which included ‘convenience’, ‘accessibility’, and ‘a less intimidating environment’. Negative features included ‘decreased connection and sense of community’, ‘less accountability’, ‘susceptibility to distractions’, and ‘screen fatigue’. Many students proposed a hybrid of in-person and virtual teaching as an ideal curriculum.

Conclusion: Future efforts for developing or refining mindfulness curricula for medical trainees may benefit from further investigating the unique advantages of both virtual and in-person delivery methods and how they may uniquely support wellbeing and professional satisfaction.