How do I keep giving to patients when I'm running on empty?

You give your skill and your energy to put other people's bodies back together, and at the end of the day there is nothing left for your own. That emptiness is not weakness or selfishness. It is the plain arithmetic of pouring out without pouring back in. You cannot heal others from a dry well. The care you give has to come from somewhere, and if you never refill, the giving itself will fail, slowly at first and then all at once. Tending to yourself is not stealing from your patients; it is protecting the source they depend on. Guard one small piece of the day that is only yours, and treat it as seriously as any appointment. A walk, a meal eaten slowly, an hour where no one needs anything from you. You are worth the same care you hand out so freely. Start by giving yourself a little of it.