An anchor, a tether, a life line and a way back to yourself

All doctors - everyone who sees patients for a living - need a solid anchor.

If / when you fall in, you can pull yourself back to shore hand over hand, make it to dry land and catch your breath.

The conversation about physician burnout is often dominated by the term RESILIENCE. We doctors need to be tougher, more elastic, stop complaining. 

I ran into an alternate way of looking at this issue via a blog post by Brenda Osieyo

Here is the quote that inspired her and me; about maintaining an anchor and a way back to yourself now that you have chosen the Lightworker's Path - working with sick, hurting, scared, dying patients and their families.

Since the 1970's, studies have shown that Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an effective tool to lower the stress of the practice of medicine and prevent physician burnout.

Jon Kabat-Zinn and the pioneers at U Mass have proven that physicians who take their eight week meditation and yoga training have superior resilience skills and subsequent studies over the last 40 years have repeatedly confirmed their initial observations. 

In reviewing this literature, three big questions come to mind for most doctors.

1)  What is mindfulness anyway?

2)  Just how does mindfulness cause its therapeutic effect?

3)  Is eight weeks of meditation training the ONLY way to be mindful at work?

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Let me share my answers to these questions, coming from three different levels of experience:

A recent study reported in the NEJM reveals the Dose-Response Curve between hours worked by resident interns and depression prevalence. 

This was a huge study, over an 11 year time span, showing a powerful dose response curve between hours worked as a physician and depression prevalence. Said another way: too much time spent as a "provider" inside the healthcare delivery system is bad for your mental health.

I deliberately did not write, "too much time seeing patients" in the sentence above,  because we both know the "job" of being an intern or a practicing doctor is so much more complicated than just patient care. 

This is a massively important fundamental observation for all practicing physicians and for US national healthcare policy. 

Let's take a quick dive into the details.

Physicians have three sources of energy to draw upon in practice and their larger life

In this post you will learn:

• The differences in these 3 distinct types of energy
• The symptoms that arise when you are in the negative in any individual account
• How you fill each one to the brim

These simple principles will supercharge your ability to recognize and prevent your own physician burnout.

A member of our network just sent me this quote.

I believe it is meant to be some kind of funny ... or a perhaps is offered up as a twisted "reality check" to those who attempt to have healthy boundaries between work and home and run into this individual who appears to claim Iron Man status.

It is certainly old school and completely unhealthy and just plain wrong. This is the workaholic, superhero, Lone Ranger, perfectionist programming we are all victim to.  

This is the boomer philosophy that makes it impossible to have healthy boundaries and admit to any struggle. This is where Imposter Syndrome begins. I feel like I want to take a shower after I read this. You?

For over 50 years, hundreds of research studies have demonstrated this consistent hierarchy
- Physician Wellness is the Foundation for Physician Engagement and Performance.

The Health, Happiness and Wellbeing of your Physicians and Staff will determine:

⇒ Their levels of Engagement and Satisfaction

⇒ The ease of Recruitment and the amount of Turnover in the patient care teams

⇒ The Quality of their care

⇒ The Quantity of care they can deliver

⇒ The Safety of that care and the number of Medical Errors

⇒ The level of Patient Satisfaction

[ and even the Net Promoter Score if that is what keeps you up at night ]

NOTICE:
PHYSICIAN WELLBEING COMES FIRST 

WELLBEING begets ENGAGEMENT which begets PERFORMANCE
⇒ IN THAT ORDER

STOP #PhysicianBurnout
Narrative Medicine
A Poem

Help us welcome Doctor Susan Leggett-Johnson MD to our physician coach team!

Susan has completed her executive coaching and physician coach training and joins our diverse team of physician coaches at TheHappyMD.com.

Dr. Leggett-Johnson a is a certified executive coach, board-certified internist, very experienced physician executive, mom and a woman of color in healthcare who plays an active role in addressing diversity, equity and inclusion issues in medicine.

She is calm, thoughtful, an excellent listener and shares her insights from a deep well of  experience as a physician, physician leader and a woman of color navigating both clinical and leadership roles in the healthcare industry. 

Susan is an expert in helping you recognize and recover from burnout, find a path to a more ideal practice, develop leadership skills especially if you are in a named leadership position and helping moms and women of color navigate the journey to being a happy, healthy physician too.

Admit their ignorance of healthcare delivery and build a truly collaborative workplace ... for starters.

Amazon is buying primary care company One Medical and the whole medical industry is holding its breath to see what a warehouse and delivery titan can do in the healthcare space.

They don't have a stellar reputation as an employer and physician burnout rates are topping 50%. I am not sure they bring anything new to the table. That level of ignorance can be an advantage if they go back to basics.

In this blog post, let's discuss the business vs. healing divide and let me show you three things Amazon could do as they acquire One Medical that would be a true breakthrough in quality care for both patients and the providers of care.

How can a one-hour training at a Medical Staff Meeting change a doctor's life?

Several times a month I meet a doctor who tells me,

"I saw you at a Medical Staff meeting (six) years ago.
I want you to know you changed my life.
I wouldn't have made it without that night and your book.
My wife/husband said I had to make sure I told you."

What a pleasure and a true honor to know that what we did together made a positive difference for that doctor's practice, their patients and their family. Wow!

And none of it was by accident.

All of our trainings are designed for immediate impact for anyone who is ready for change.