There are many factors contributing to medical student stress, but a significant part of the problem is medical training itself. Love and care are as integral to medical training as they are to Medicine itself, but our current systems do not honour this truth, nor the people they are training. The way most medical schools are currently set up, the entry system is fiercely competitive, there are copious tests, exams and demands on the students throughout their training, and this is intensified when it comes to post-graduate specialty training. Discrimination, harassment, bullying and abuse are rife. It does not need to be this way. We could remove much of the grading system and competition with a simple pass/fail grade and we could be much more caring of them as people and aware of the need to address the whole person in medical training, so that our students are better equipped to deal with what will come their way.

Our young doctors are a precious commodity and are to be treated as such. We are role models for them, but what kind of role models are we? It is not just about what we teach them, but the way we teach them, and the lived quality that we reflect to them in every interaction. This quality is something that is developed when we live and work in a way that is caring and sustainable for ourselves, and in turn inspires and empowers young doctors to live and work in a way that is sustainable for them.

The care of our patients is determined by the care we have for ourselves first and foremost. Self-care needs to become an integral part of medical training, so that the doctors of our future are enriched by their work and supported to provide the quality of care that we all deserve.