BLOG: Find meaning to stave off burnout

There seems to be no end in sight to the raging burnout epidemic afflicting all health care providers. The electronic medical record is here to stay, reimbursements are not going to rise anytime soon and insurance hassles may only get more convoluted.

However, we can change our response to life events and choose our attitudes in any situation. The great psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl wrote: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Frankl continues with words that will resonate with today’s practitioner: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

We can change what we focus our attention to all that is troubling us or all the good that is before us. Similarly, in every event at home and at work we have a choice — our active response.

We can choose to focus on all that attracted us to a vocation in medicine — the ability to make a material change in the lives of others, the blessing to use science in action and the proud privilege to use our hands to affect healing — or we can focus on the insurance hassles, paperwork, peer-to-peer reviews and all our unsigned charts. Likewise, we can respond to adversity with kindness and compassion.

Viktor Frankl understood full well the power of decision. In his own words: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space, is our power to choose our response. In our response, lies our growth and our freedom.”

Add meaning, purpose to life

The following are tried and true “burnout busting” attitudes and responses that will add meaning and purpose to our lives:

 

• Choose to focus on the true meaning of your work. Research shows an inverse correlation with one’s ability to find meaning in his or her vocation and burnout. Appreciate that you have a wonderful privilege to affect positive change in the lives of so many.
• Adopt an attitude of compassion to others and a focus outward. Be kind to patients and staff. The law of karma is immutable. What you put out you will receive. Little acts of charity toward patients and staff will go a long way toward making your day more fulfilling.
• Choose to emphasize relationships. The most satisfied physicians have great relationships with patients, staff and colleagues. We are in this together, and resiliency is forged by lifelong supportive relationships.
• Develop self-awareness. Reflect on those things that are onerous and those activities in your vocation that bring joy. Research and teaching energize me; yet I often find these pursuits get overshadowed by others’ demands.
• Decide to get off the RVU treadmill. When patients become “customers” and revenue streams, meaning will vanquish. You will sow the seeds of a barren and unfulfilled life. Good news: When patients appreciate that you are intrinsically interested in their well-being, they will be more compliant, have better outcomes and your reputation will be held in high esteem.

Keys to long-term effectiveness

The enactment of these habits may seem like heresy in today’s stressful and demanding times but are the keys to long-term effectiveness. Remember happy and fulfilled surgeons give better care. You may earn a little less, but the “dividends” to you and your loved ones will be immeasurable. 

Tomorrow try this:

 

• Re-visit the reasons you chose medicine as a vocation. Being a healer will bring more lasting joy than being an “earner.”
• Make a list if aspects of your practice that bring you joy and those that sap you dry. If teaching is your bliss, teach more. If research energizes you, schedule dedicated time for this weekly. You may lose a few RVUs, but you are sowing the seeds of a fulfilling and lasting vocation.
• Take time to forge meaningful relationships at work. Scheduling a 10-minute coffee beak with a trusted colleague will go a long way in inoculating you against burnout.
• In every clinical encounter, develop present moment awareness of all that the patient is feeling. A mindful awareness of the pain the patient is presenting to you will cause your own personal concerns to vanquish.

 

We will never go hungry or without necessities, even if we miss our budget targets. We each have the wonderful and profound privilege to effect incredible change in the lives of every patient we encounter. A compassionate and kind disposition to all those the universe present to us will leave us with satisfied patients and a richly fulfilled life.

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’”- Frankl

References:

Frankl VE. Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy: A newly revised and enlarged edition of from death-camp to existentialism. 1962. Beacon press.

Shanafelt TD, et al. Arch Intern Med. 2009;doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2009.70.

Shanafelt TD, et al. Mayo Clin Proc. 2015;doi:10.1016/j.mayocp.2015.08.023.

McMurray JE, et al. J Gen Intern Med. 1997;12:711-714.

 

Disclosure: Kelly reports no relevant financial disclosures.