Salt and Light: Stewarding Time in the Midst of Pressure
By Brent Davis with ChatGPT
In healthcare education and practice—whether in nursing, pharmacy, or academic leadership—time rarely feels abundant. Clinical rotations, laboratory preparation, grading, research, patient counseling, family obligations, and community commitments converge into a steady stream of urgency. In such environments, “time management” is often reduced to efficiency strategies and productivity systems.
Christian author Elizabeth Grace Saunders, in Divine Time Management: Trusting God, Loving Others, and Surrendering the Stress of Your To-Do List, offers a different starting point. Her central claim is that time stewardship is not first a matter of technique but of trust. Stress often flows less from the volume of tasks and more from the belief that everything depends on us.
For students, faculty, and community members navigating demanding roles, this reframing is both spiritually grounding and practically stabilizing.
Time Management as Trust
Saunders argues that many people attempt to manage time while simultaneously attempting to manage outcomes that belong to God. This produces chronic stress, especially in high-responsibility professions such as healthcare.
For nursing and pharmacy students, this often manifests as:
- Fear of making a clinical error
- Pressure to perform flawlessly under observation
- Anxiety about grades or professional reputation
For faculty, it appears as:
- Over commitment to committees and initiatives
- Unrealistic expectations for research productivity
- Emotional exhaustion from mentoring and service
For community members and professionals, it may surface as:
- Caregiving strain
- Volunteer overload
- Work-life imbalance
Saunders’ corrective is simple but profound: responsibility does not equal omnipotence. Faithfulness is required; total control is not.
Distinguishing Assignment from Assumption
A core insight in Divine Time Management is the need to differentiate between true assignments and internal assumptions.
Assignments are legitimate responsibilities:
- A scheduled clinical shift
- A required exam
- A course syllabus deadline
- A patient consultation
Assumptions are self-imposed expectations:
- “I must never appear uncertain.”
- “I should say yes to every request.”
- “If I rest, I am falling behind.”
In healthcare education, where evaluation and patient safety matter deeply, assumptions easily multiply. Yet overextension reduces attentiveness, increases emotional reactivity, and may compromise judgment.
Clarity about actual expectations allows healthier boundaries and more focused effort.
Capacity Is Designed, Not a Defect
Healthcare culture often rewards endurance. Long shifts, late-night study sessions, and compressed turnaround times are normalized. Saunders reminds readers that human limits are intentional, not accidental.
For students:
- Learning requires rest for memory consolidation.
- Emotional exposure to suffering requires processing time.
- Fatigue impairs clinical reasoning.
For faculty:
- Creativity and scholarship require margin.
- Mentorship demands emotional presence.
- Sustainable leadership depends on rhythm.
Research supports these realities. Chronic stress is associated with impaired cognition, increased error risk, and burnout among healthcare professionals (Dyrbye et al., 2014; West et al., 2018). Time stewardship, therefore, is not merely personal wellness—it is an ethical matter tied to patient safety and professional integrity.
Love as the Metric of Productivity
Saunders reframes productivity around love rather than volume. The question becomes not, “How much did I accomplish?” but “Was I faithful and present?”
In nursing:
- Did I listen carefully?
- Did I treat this patient with dignity?
In pharmacy:
- Did I counsel with clarity and patience?
- Did I protect safety through careful verification?
In academia:
- Did I mentor attentively?
- Did I cultivate justice, respect, and care?
This aligns with evidence linking compassionate care to improved patient outcomes and satisfaction (Sinclair et al., 2016). Efficiency without relational presence may achieve tasks, but it does not fulfill vocation.
Integrating Surrender with Structure
Importantly, Saunders does not advocate passivity. She combines spiritual surrender with practical structure:
- Clarify core commitments.
- Schedule realistically.
- Build margin.
- Reevaluate regularly.
- Adjust prayerfully.
For students, this may mean:
- Avoiding intensive study blocks immediately after extended clinical shifts.
- Protecting one weekly recovery period.
- Planning backward from exam dates.
For faculty:
- Limiting committee commitments.
- Setting defined office hours.
- Guarding research time intentionally.
For community members:
- Evaluating volunteer obligations.
- Aligning service with calling rather than guilt.
- Prioritizing relational investments.
A Healthier Culture of Time
Saunders’ approach intersects with current conversations about burnout in healthcare education. Burnout—characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced sense of accomplishment—has been widely documented among medical and pharmacy trainees (Dyrbye et al., 2014). Structured reflection, boundary-setting, and spiritual resilience are protective factors.
A Christian framework adds theological grounding:
- Identity is not rooted in performance.
- Work is stewardship, not self-justification.
- Rest is obedience, not indulgence.
- Trust displaces anxiety.
When institutions cultivate these values, they promote both flourishing and excellence.
Conclusion
Time management in healthcare education is often treated as a technical problem requiring better planners, apps, or optimization strategies. Elizabeth Grace Saunders invites a deeper inquiry: What if our stress reflects misplaced trust rather than insufficient efficiency?
For nursing students, pharmacy students, faculty, and community members, the invitation is this:
Steward faithfully.
Rest intentionally.
Love generously.
Trust ultimately.
Such an approach not only reduces stress—it strengthens vocation, protects patient care, and fosters sustainable service.
References
Dyrbye, L. N., West, C. P., Satele, D., Boone, S., Tan, L., Sloan, J., & Shanafelt, T. D. (2014). Burnout among U.S. medical students, residents, and early career physicians relative to the general U.S. population. Academic Medicine, 89(3), 443–451. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000134
Saunders, E. G. (2017). Divine time management: Trusting God, loving others, and surrendering the stress of your to-do list. FaithWords.
Sinclair, S., Norris, J. M., McConnell, S. J., Chochinov, H. M., Hack, T. F., Hagen, N. A., McClement, S., & Bouchal, S. R. (2016). Compassion: A scoping review of the healthcare literature. BMC Palliative Care, 15, 6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-016-0080-0
West, C. P., Dyrbye, L. N., Erwin, P. J., & Shanafelt, T. D. (2018). Interventions to prevent and reduce physician burnout: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet, 388(10057), 2272–2281. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31279-X
