Stressful situations

El estrés es una parte esencial de la vida. El cómo lo llevemos depende de cada uno. En mi caso, trato de mantenerlo en una zona de confort. Me ayuda la práctica sistemática de diferentes tipos de actividades físicas. Andar por la montaña. Correr con botas pesadas en terrenos pedregosos. Practicar katas en una cala desierta. Recoger hierbas en el monte. Acariciar un gato. Leer. Escuchar Metallica o  Bach. Cuando me he encontrado en situaciones algo estresantes, como por ejemplo,  impartiendo docencia en el "Highland School of Technology", Gastonia (NC) y ver en directo el ataque a las Torres Gemelas, he reaccionado bien. Se trataba de seguir con nuestra tarea en el aula. Como si no pasara nada. Y lo conseguimos todos los/as profesores y la maravillosa gente que hacía posible nuestro cometido. Eso es manejar el estrés. Hemingway decía que "grace under pressure". Antes de perpetrar la presente pieza conversé con Santi López - Ben, cirujano del equipo del Hospital Josep Trueta (Gerona, Catalunya, España). López Ben es capaz de mostrarse cálido, casi cariñoso. Dedica tiempo a hablar con sus pacientes. Pero cuando entra al quirófano deja afuera los sentimientos. Entonces es frío e impasible. Un maestro zen con un arma afilada. La psiquiatra Maite García tiene que escuchar a muchas personas. Una hora para cada paciente. Lo soporta con una combinación de alta profesionalidad, paciencia y vocación. Es modesta. "Nuestra especialidad es la "maría". No tenemos un mapa funcional del cerebro", dice. Un guarda fronteras cubano (como la Guardia Civil en España)  me explicó que a veces, le tocan según que misiones en las que perder los nervios sería "cagarla". La seguridad de un aeropuerto es un asunto serio y complejo. Hay que controlar una y otra vez las cosas. Todo tiene que estar bajo control. Tomarse su tiempo. Y sus recursos son los que son. Cuando sale del turno de guardia, pues una ducha fría y si puede, algo de descanso con la familia. Comer con su madre. En el cuartel tienen muy buen rollo. Digamos que se relajan. Hay plantas naturales. Un jardín agradable.Tranquilidad, mientras no estalle una especie de zafarrancho. Encontré interesante la manera en que el médico Simón Eccles, de los hospitales Guy´s and St. Thomas, Londres, Reino Unido, aborda el estrés.

"The A&E consultant: Dr Simon Eccles, at Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals, London

Estetoscopio.Getty Images

There are two types of stressful situation that arise in my job. The first is where you've got someone who's seriously unwell and they're not responding to treatment. The other is during the peak hours of A&E. On weekends, we're seeing twice as many patients and it can be awful, really tense. The worst is when someone dies under difficult circumstances. In many cases people die in emergency departments under conditions that are not enormously stressful for the doctors because you know you've done absolutely everything you could. Then there are the other instances which are horrid for everyone.

One of the worst I've dealt with was a car accident about four or five years ago involving a family returning from a concert. In the interests of speed, we had the mother and the youngest child sent to us, and the father and oldest child were at a different hospital. I ended up trying to explain to the remaining relatives that the child had died and that the mother was critically unwell.

There's a moment as you walk in the room when everybody looks up and all you can see is hope. They want you to tell them it's going to be all right and your job, sadly, is to explain to them that it isn't. It doesn't matter how often you do it, it doesn't get any easier. You go home and you hug your family that bit harder.

One of the best antidotes to that situation is to have people around you with whom you can share the stresses of the day. I can't tell you how much it helps to have that means of letting off steam. I try to remember what I love about the job rather than the stress. I'm having conversations with people that they will probably never have with any other human being, and that's a great privilege.

In order to create more calm in my life, I made a somewhat drastic decision. I changed hospital, so now my commute is a 12-minute walk from home. It compensates enormously for the stress and the long hours. It also means I can play with my three-year-old son at both ends of the day.

I think at its most chaotic, the stress in A&E is about me not having control. So I think it's important to have a hobby where you do have complete control, and mine is restoring classic cars. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time fixing up a 1967 and a 1969 Rover. I rent a garage for a sum of money that makes my eyeballs bleed. The other thing that helps restore calm is going to the pub after a shift and chatting and laughing about some of the daft things that have happened during the day. They probably seem weird to people on the outside, but it helps to reorganise the brain". ("The Guardian")