Mindfulness Practices: Pragmatic Tool for Addressing the Mindlessness Among Healthcare Providers

Abstract

Mindfulness is untethered by past, present, and future constraints. Its versatility and effectiveness have led to broad application in the medical domain, and these approaches, such as programs like Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), have further solidified their reputation as pragmatic tools, especially in patient care, contributing to improving people’s well-being and healthcare outcomes. However, healthcare providers need to be recipients of mindfulness practices since there is so much mindlessness among healthcare providers, presenting as misdiagnosis, delayed treatment, suboptimal care, etc. Therefore, since mindfulness practices have been proven to effectively reduce various kinds of mindlessness, they should extend their benefits to healthcare providers who, like anyone else, can grapple with moments of mindlessness in their work.