How Good Health Makes You A Better Healthcare Provider

If you work in the healthcare field, your patients are most likely looking up to you. Especially, when it comes to health and wellness. Therefore, keeping yourself healthy allows you to model good behaviors to those you care for.

How Patients View You

Are you embracing the same healthy lifestyle you’re recommending to your patients?

If you are, they are much more likely to listen to your health advice. For example, a healthcare provider with a bad smoker’s cough who is lecturing a patient on why they need to give up cigarettes is unlikely to garner the same degree of respect as a non-smoker. Likewise, if you’re in poor physical health, your patients may question your advice since you’re not healthy. Even though you are a private individual, your patients see you as someone they hold to a higher standard.

Exercising Daily

When you exercise on a regular basis, you are better positioned to advise your patients on the benefits of different forms of regular physical activity. You can also empathize when it comes to working exercise into a busy schedule. As a healthcare provider, you can also offer practical, real-life tips and advice on how to embrace this healthy strategy. If a patient has concerns about chronic health conditions and how exercise might impact them, having first-hand personal experience, combined with your medical knowledge, will allow you to better guide patients toward healthy practices.

Eating Well

Are you in good physical condition?

If so, your patients are more likely to take dietary advice from you. According to Healthline, you can provide advice on best dietary guidelines, meal planning and preparation, and eating a diet that is custom-tailored to a person’s individual lifestyle, chronic health conditions, age, and activity levels. You may also offer encouragement. Plus, resources that can help them make healthier food choices. On the other hand, if you have unhealthy eating habits, your patients are unlikely to take your advice.

Be Encouraging

When it comes to topics like healthy physical routines and good eating habits, many people struggle.

According to the American Medical Association, as a healthcare provider, your job is to give patients medical advice, but you can also be a motivator. Point out how investing in their health and wellness is critical to their longevity. Also, how prioritizing themselves can have myriad mental, physical, and emotional benefits. Give patients permission to invest in themselves. Tell them to join a gym or purchase workout clothes to motivate them. This might include a great pair of practical, comfortable leggings, well-fitting shoes, and exercise equipment or workout gear that will make a regular routine feel more invigorating.

Healthcare providers are human beings. But often times, patients see them in a different light. They even hold different expectations about their health and wellness behaviors. It’s smart for you as an individual and healthcare provider to practice your own advice. One, you’ll be able to provide real-life, easy-to-implement directives to your patients. And two, you’ll be in great mental, emotional and physical condition.

About Our Guest Contributor Gabriel Patel:

Gabriel Patel enjoys writing about health and wellness. Patel co-founded HealthWellWise.com with a group of friends who share the desire to help people live happy, healthy lives.

About MASC Medical Recruitment Firm:

MASC Medical Recruitment Firm offers full-service healthcare staffing services on a nationwide scale. With the passion and experience of a top physician recruiter, MASC employs an efficient methodology within a streamlined process that serves both healthcare providers and healthcare organizations. Ready to learn more? Simply say hello!