David Oliver: When "resilience" becomes a dirty word.

We need to talk about “resilience.” One dictionary definition is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Health Education England describes it as “the ability to bounce back—a capacity to absorb negative conditions, integrate them in meaningful ways, and move forward.” The General Medical Council announced in recent years that doctors under investigation and all medical students would receive “emotional resilience” training. 4 Practising medicine has never been straightforward, and it has always required such attributes. Doctors carry responsibility, risk, uncertainty, and self doubt. We make difficult decisions and witness harrowing scenarios weekly—that’s the nature of being a doctor. And, being human, it can get to us. Support to adapt and learn from these inherent challenges, and to develop coping skills, would be welcome in any health system. But “absorbing” any unacceptably and avoidably “negative conditions” makes resilience a dirty word. It shifts the blame and responsibility for doctors’ struggles away from what are often over-politicised, understaffed, underfunded, badly organised systems and onto individuals.