All this talk about burnout has me\u2026 well\u2026 burned out. Theories abound and prevalence data is flying about. \u00a0Are 54% of physicians burned out, or is it 25%? Is it because we\u2019re worked too hard, or because the “new-trophy-for-everyone” generation is finally being hit with reality?<\/p>\n
I can tell you from experience, burnout occurs when there are big things about your work you resent, and the rewards become overshadowed by these key persistent resentments. Working 24\/7\/365 isn\u2019t the problem, its what you\u2019re not doing because you\u2019re working all the time that is. Its not what we\u2019re doing, it\u2019s what we aren\u2019t that leads to burnout.<\/p>\n
Duh? Well\u2026 it\u2019s not that simple, and once again it comes back to resentment. Most of us resent what we can\u2019t do because we work so hard, but not all resentments are the same; expectations are the second key contributing factor. If you expected to have a lot of purchasing power because of excellent compensation as a physician only to found out that you really don\u2019t because you chose a lower paying specialty, then you may resent what you do. If you expected to be home by 6 pm most nights only to find out that to finish your charting and phone calls you have to stay until 8pm, you may resent what you do. Know your expectations and be aware of your resentments.<\/p>\n
Burnout is best prevented, because fixing it can be hard. Both prevention and cure takes efforts on the part of the individual as well as the \u201csystem\u201d. The microsystem (your team\/clinic or pod), the mesosystem (the group practice, department or service line), and the macrosystem (hospital or network) all need to participate in the process. But without the individual taking ownership, efforts often fail.<\/p>\n
The 4 horsemen of burnout from the HappyMD (https:\/\/www.thehappymd.com\/blog\/bid\/290379\/Physician-Burnout-The-Four-Horsemen-of-the-Physician-Burnout-Apocalypse) are around every corner and their momentum can be difficult to slow. The Workaholic, the Superhero, the Perfectionist, and the Lone Ranger are wicked creatures. All four have haunted me, possessed me and driven me into the ground (nearly literally). The system can\u2019t exorcise them unless the individual desires it so.<\/p>\n
But often the individual who carries the burden won\u2019t let go of it unless others are\u00a0there to take some of it away. \u00a0I survived by lowering my expectations (forget about getting home to see the kids before bed, forget about exercising or having friends, forget about doing those things that bring you joy to your work). \u00a0What I didn\u2019t know was that constant stress kills. \u00a0My advice to anyone who is approaching burnout or is cooking at a broil: be true to yourself, your family and your patients and stop the 4 horsemen in their tracks, because once you’re toast, scraping off the burnt parts is painful, and what\u2019s left isn\u2019t all that appetizing. \u00a0If you’re on one of those horses or all of them, stop, drop and rock and roll on your own terms (and take your family and friends with you).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All this talk about burnout has me\u2026 well\u2026 burned out. Theories abound and prevalence data is flying about. \u00a0Are 54% of physicians burned out, or is it 25%? Is it because we\u2019re worked too hard, or because the “new-trophy-for-everyone” generation is finally being hit with reality? I can tell you from experience, burnout occurs when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadingachildrenshospital.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}