Medical Families at Risk: A Psychotherapeutic Approach to Care for Physicians and their Families

Physicians’ emotional life is challenging. On top of the extra demands that Covid brought, the medical culture requires physicians to work long hours, to be exposed to patients suffering and dying. Moreover, patients expect physicians to act without mistakes and be perfectionistic bulwarks. Nothing less is accepted. The result of long periods of absence, on-call systems, and taking work home significantly impacts family dynamics. Families of physicians (medical families) have consistent patterns of challenging relationships. To decrease the burden of physicians’ work-related demands, healthcare systems run well-being initiatives focusing on individual resilience factors; however, relational aspects are also significant in helping our physicians feel joy in life. Based on several years of experience running family therapy with medical families, this presentation will cover some basics about family systems applications to clinical work with these families.