Stop Physician Burnout - Treating the Symptoms only Makes Burnout Worse

Physician burnout has two sets of symptoms

• One for the Doctor - the personal signs and symptoms that YOU are suffering from burnout as an individual

• One for the Organization - the various way rising levels of physician burnout destroy the performance and morale of a population of healthcare providers

For the individual physician, here is one of our most popular posts on burnout's symptoms and gender differences.

In this blog post, let me show you three quick observations from our work with over 140 healthcare organizations and societies to date:

• The common organizational symptoms of burnout
• How and why most groups only treat the symptoms of provider burnout
• And why just treating the symptoms inevitably makes everything worse

"We can't talk about physician burnout, everyone will go part time"

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This is Blog Post #275
Complete Blog Library is Here
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This article kicks off a mini-series of blog posts documenting my experience of Silly Things Physician Leaders Say About Physician Burnout. This first example is a great place to begin - a surprisingly frequent CMO/CEO exclamation - often used as justification for continued attempts to ignore the obvious presence of physician burnout.

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"We can't talk about physician burnout, everyone will go part time"

That is a major subconscious fear of some healthcare administrators and physician leaders. Sometimes they will actually say these same words to your face. If you happen to be the wellness champion in your organization, that statement is usually part of a paragraph that includes "things were OK around here until you showed up".

Quadruple Aim FAIL Diary:
How to Sabotage Your Physician Wellness Program From the Start

Healthcare's new Quadruple Aim recognizes happy, healthy patients can only come from happy healthy doctors. Quadruple Aim leaders understand that taking better care of your doctors is mandatory for successful organizations in the future.

Physician's New ADL's -  Your Activities of Daily Leadership

When you are a master of your basic ADL's - life is easier.

When you master the Activities of Daily Leadership - your practice gets easier too.

In this blog post, let me show you a next-level set of tools to stop working so hard, get home sooner and prevent physician burnout. The key is simple leadership skills performed on purpose every day. 

Every physician I have ever met works too hard.

The modern physician burnout epidemic is a sign that doctors are at a tipping point ... as in tipping over the edge of a cliff. You think burnout is bad now ... project a future where we simply continue dumping additional responsibilities on their backs as usual.

The Quadruple Aim has the potential to turn the tide of stress and burnout, but only if we can bridge the gulf between UNDERSTANDING the Quadruple Aim and actually IMPLEMENTING it.

Let me show you a powerful way to bring the Quadruple Aim to life in your organization with a simple Prime Directive for Healthcare Leaders.

Prevent Physician Burnout - curated resource libraries now available.

When you are aware that physician burnout is not a problem and understand its true nature as a never ending balancing act, it will become obvious you will never find a solution - the key is to focus on building your strategy to maintain balance.

We teach 117 ways to prevent burnout. Each has been proven in the real world by hundreds of physicians in all specialties AND that is a LOT of options to wade through. 

We are excited to share our new curated resource libraries so you can cut to the chase and find the best burnout prevention tools quickly and easily.

Use the links below to dive into our curated collections of tools to Get Home Sooner, Build Life Balance and become a More Effective Leader.

Each of the tools on this page will make sure you actually get home sooner. The library includes our EMR strategy recommendations, BID Huddle power tips, Batch Processing formula, the antidote to Multitasking and much more. All just a click away.

If there is a culture that eats physician burnout for breakfast, where do you find that restaurant and who is your server?

There IS a culture capable of eating burnout for breakfast.

A healthy workplace culture is more than a Unicorn - something you have heard of but never actually seen. Even in high stress, difficult situations, that culture will keep you connected, supporting and caring for each other. 

Unfortunately, the typical hostile, overloaded, Triple Aim whirlwind of a workplace culture in a healthcare organization will EAT YOU and your people for breakfast instead.

Inaugural Quadruple Aim Physician Leadership Retreat launching in Seattle, Washington, May 7 – 10, 2017 [Press Release]

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and Secure Your Spot on the Early Bird Registration List
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Burnout is rampant among American doctors. One recent survey shows 54% of practicing physicians suffering from at least one burnout symptom (1). Burnout’s pervasive negative effects include lower quality of care, patient satisfaction, higher error rates and an organizational culture of resistance and disengagement.

One of the causes of this modern epidemic is twenty years of single-minded industry focus on the Triple Aim – Cost, Quality and Population Health. In 2015 a group of healthcare leaders finally asked the obvious question, “How can our organizations provide high quality medical care if our people are burned out?” The answer revealed healthcare’s new Quadruple Aim. (2)

In these chaotic times a focus on this fourth aim – the health and wellbeing of all the people providing the care – will make the difference. When physician leaders learn the skills to reduce burnout and build a more supportive culture – actually living the Quadruple Aim – better care and satisfaction, fewer errors and more engagement will be the result, naturally and automatically.

TheHappyMD.com, Seattle, Washington 1/12/2017

TheHappyMD.com, the healthcare industry leader in burnout prevention training and coaching, announces the first Quadruple Aim Physician Leadership Retreat, May 7 – 10, 2017 in Seattle Washington.

Physician Leadership - the fundamental currency of leadership 

Physicians are at a distinct disadvantage when they assume leadership roles. The top-down leadership style we absorb in our training - where the doctor gives orders, the team is expected to obey and the patients to comply - doesn't work when you are leading a work team. Giving orders is a style that falls on its face when the people you are leading happen to be other physicians.

What is the #1 skill of quality physician leadership?

The answer may surprise you.

What I can tell you is that being a great clinician does not teach you this skill. In fact, our medical education sets us up to be naturally ineffective leaders.

I am not just talking about physicians in official leadership positions here. All physicians are leaders. We all have people who look up to us for guidance, answers, wisdom and vision. So let's get you the skill set you need to do a great job.

Once you learn this key skill 

• You will see your team perform better than ever
• And you won't be working nearly as hard as you do now

In the brief video below you will learn this master skill and the "Lone Ranger" test to know exactly when you need to throw it into gear.