Pillars are a significant symbol in various cultures, religions, and spiritual teachings around the world. They symbolize support, strength, and stability. In medicine, we have pillars that form our firm foundation: autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. These set a certain expectation of our performance as physicians in all circumstances, but especially when things get difficult. Whether with our patients, a colleague, or in our personal lives, bad things happen. And while our careers may give us some pillars to overcome the situations we face, we can often find ourselves needing more support.
It may surprise you to learn the authors for this article independently arrived at a 2,000-year-old philosophy called Stoicism to guide us in our pursuit of a life well-lived. Stoicism flourished in antiquity as a dominant philosophy that gained significant popularity in the Roman empire. Its principles guided the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. For Marcus, the Stoic pillars of...
