I recently came across a tweet from a healthcare professional who wrote, “Working in healthcare can feel like the Olympics on some days… here are tips on how to train to be ready like an athlete!” (It was a tweet by Mary Rensel, MD, FAAN, ABIHM, whose account you can find here).
Her tweet made me smile, but not for the reasons you might think.
It struck me that being a patient in today’s healthcare system often feels like competing in the Olympics too—a marathon of endurance, a test of resilience, and a constant series of hurdles to navigate.
As a patient, it’s not just the doctors, nurses, and staff who face immense pressure. Being in the healthcare system means you have to navigate a complex world, where you often feel like an underdog athlete striving to make it to the finish line despite the odds stacked against you.
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Here’s how it feels like my own Olympic journey:
1. Training for Endurance: Endless Appointments and Waiting Rooms
The first way being a patient resembles the Olympics is the sheer endurance it takes to manage chronic conditions or long-term treatments.
Like an athlete training for a marathon, there are days, weeks, and even years of preparation and effort before any concrete results appear.
It’s appointment after appointment—lab tests, specialist visits, and endless waiting rooms that can feel like warm-up sessions without a clear finish line.
The pace can be grueling, and patience becomes its own kind of sport.
Waiting rooms can feel like a holding pen before a race, where you’re anxiously watching the clock, hoping the next step gets you closer to a diagnosis, a plan, or some sense of relief. It’s a constant mental and emotional workout, requiring the kind of endurance that Olympic athletes train for, day in and day out.
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2. Navigating Obstacles: Insurance, Paperwork, and the Healthcare Maze
For patients, the obstacles are not just physical but administrative.
Just like a hurdler leaping over barriers to reach the finish line, we must overcome paperwork, insurance claims, pre-authorizations, and pharmacy complications.
Every medication can involve multiple calls, appeals, and justification letters.
It feels like a steeplechase, with each appointment needing another level of verification, another hurdle that must be jumped to access care.
It’s exhausting, both mentally and emotionally, to continuously advocate for yourself in a system that often feels impersonal and overwhelming.
One missed step—like a single error on a form or a failure to get pre-approval—can lead to setbacks that feel as devastating as falling just short of a gold medal.
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3. Playing Through the Pain: Minimizing Discomfort to Get the Care You Need
Olympic athletes play through the pain to stay in the competition, and as patients, many of us do the same.
We learn to manage our symptoms, minimize our discomfort, and sometimes underplay the severity of what we’re going through because we know that appearing “too difficult” might affect the quality of our care.
There’s a pressure to “perform” as a good patient, to be compliant and accommodating, even if it means hiding the true extent of our pain.
There’s also the reality of those days when you have to go to yet another appointment despite fatigue, or advocate for your own treatment plan when you’re feeling vulnerable and exhausted. We have to show up and be strong because we know that, like any elite athlete, our mental game matters as much as our physical one.
There’s a pressure to “perform” as a good patient, to be compliant and accommodating, even if it means hiding the true extent of our pain.
4. The Need for a Support Team: Finding the Right Healthcare Partners
Olympians have coaches, trainers, and a support team.
As patients, we need our own team too—a network of compassionate doctors, empathetic nurses, and understanding specialists who see us as individuals rather than just a set of symptoms.
When we find the right healthcare provider, it feels like finding the perfect coach who believes in you, guides you, and fights in your corner.
The search for that team is like trying to find the best coaching staff before a major competition; it requires patience, determination, and a little bit of luck.
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5. Celebrating the Victories—No Matter How Small
Just like Olympians celebrate personal bests and record-breaking moments, patients celebrate the small victories.
Whether it’s finally getting a long-awaited diagnosis, receiving clear scan results, or having a day without pain, these are the milestones that matter.
They’re the equivalent of crossing the finish line, even if it’s just one step in a much longer race.
These victories make the challenges worthwhile, and they remind us why we keep pushing forward.
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Unlike Olympians, who choose to compete, patients are often thrust into this demanding race without warning.
We don’t get the luxury of opting out, taking a break, or choosing an “off-season.”
The race to maintain health is ongoing, and while it can be exhausting, it also shapes us into strong, resilient individuals who learn to navigate one of the most complex systems in the world.
We don’t get the luxury of opting out, taking a break, or choosing an “off-season.”
So to the healthcare professional who compared their work to the Olympics: I understand what you mean, but know that patients are right there alongside you.
We’re also racing, enduring, and jumping through hurdles every day, doing our best to reach the finish line—whatever that might look like for each of us. We are Olympians too, in our own way, and we hope you see our effort and tenacity, just as we admire yours.
