This is Blog Post #415 - The full library is Here

I launched my website and physician coaching practice back in 2010.

Since then our team has trained and coached over 40,000 doctors to recognize, prevent and recover from burnout.

Along the way, our work has revealed what I believe to be a universal set of habits that create a state of wellbeing and satisfaction in practicing physicians - no matter what your specialty or how many hats you wear at work.

When optimizing physician wellbeing and happiness, it helps to view a doctor's life in four layers: 

LIFE <> CAREER <> PRACTICE <> JOB

Let's look at them one at a time so we can see where the typical block to a physician's happiness lies.

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Just one question and a deep breath can give you the key metric for your personal level of physician wellness.

This question is worded to ask your heart and soul to calculate the balance between ...

• The daily time and energy you devote to your job
• The meaning, purpose and impact those efforts create
• Your level of life balance
• R.O.I. - as in "is this worth all I do - and everything I have done to get here"?

All of this is bundled into the question below:

The fundamental conflict and a proven process for a way forward, in three brief chapters

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Chapter 1

Physician's Search for Meaning

Physicians are Lightworkers

We made a choice long ago to ally our professional career to the forces of Light in the universe ... battling specific forces of Darkness - illness, suffering, death and dying.

Every day an invisible, swirling wall blocks us from helping and healing and making the difference we dreamed of when we went to medical school

We are LIGHTWORKERS in a daily WHIRLWIND and this is the main cause of burnout at the level of heart, soul and spirit.

I reveal and narrate this battle in this 3 Minute Video  

And it just does not have to be this way.

It is a modern epidemic and a plague upon US healthcare. It should wake CEO's up in a cold sweat across the nation every night at 3 AM.

Adversity does not build character ... it reveals it.

In the heat of the pandemic and now in the short staffing crisis that dominates most markets ... physicians, nurses and all front line staff have revealed their character

PhysiciansOnPurpose [ POP ] Podcast #62

In the medical profession, women physicians are automatically assigned a position of inferior status compared to their male colleagues. Women physicians also run into challenges to their status from female nurses on the job site.

Status leveling burden is a set of behaviors all female physicians must perfect in order to up-level their status with regards to these two groups on the practice site. 

1) Male physicians. Men are automatically granted higher status purely virtue of their gender. Women physicians must work to bring themselves up to the level of status and respect of their male colleagues. It takes finesse, practice and effort.

2) Female nurses. There is an additional set of behaviors women physicians must master in order to maintain status with Female Nurses on the practice site. Again, these specific communications and acts of kindness take finesse, practice and additional effort that male physicians need not expend at work.

This was a great discussion for women and men alike with the lead researcher from a new study, Dr. Teresa Cardador PhD. This is a set of behaviors that make it harder for female residents to make it through training and can drive female physicians right out of medicine in some cases. We have all seen them. Now we have a name to aid our discussions of how to respond.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
~ Albert Einstein

Physician Burnout - Praying for a one-step solution is human nature and a trap!

One of the key features of physician burnout is a desire to run away, escape, make the pain stop. When you are deep in the downward spiral, your mind drops to its knees and prays for a simple, one-step solution to the agony and despair.

We ask basic questions like:

1. What is the solution to physician burnout?
2. What can I do to solve this, make it go away and get on with my career and my life?
   
   

Because our questions are simple, we assume a simple answer -- a solution, a magic pill, a one-shot fix -- will come to our rescue.

This is magical thinking and a search that is doomed to fail !

In this blog post, let me show you the simplest way possible to prevent physician burnout in any healthcare organization that employs physicians. 

I promise to make it as simple as possible for you, but no simpler. 

 

THREE KEY DISTINCTIONS

Physician burnout is a normal response to overwhelming stress  

Burnout is a normal response in anyone who chose to be a helper and a healer and is blocked from making enough of a difference in the lives of their patients.