How to avoid burnout
Definitions & Key takeaways
Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion, which can result from excessive and long-term stress. There are a few key ways to avoid burnout: 1. Take care of yourself both physically and mentally, and try to save time whenever you can. Eat well, get enough sleep, and make time for activities you enjoy. 2. Set time boundaries of when you finish work, and do other activities. Take some time each day to relax and de-stress, whether that means taking a hot bath, reading your favorite book, or spending time with friends and family; make sure to set aside some time each day just for you 3. Establish a solid work-life balance. Set realistic goals for yourself and take on only a little at a time.
Hey guys, ride here. I'm the Chief Metal Golf here at osmosis.
Today, I'm going to talk about kind of three tips to avoid burnout, which is super common. Number one tip.
Make sure that you're using what I call hacks. So there's lots and lots of hacks to get around the bureaucracy of medicine.
Uh, that's something that exists really everywhere I've visited kind of, uh, a number of countries around the world all have the same problem of paperwork, right.
So make sure you come up with some hacks, some specific ones that I've used are and some hospitals that I've worked in where I've been really, really fortunate you can get a medical scribe, someone to actually scribe what you're writing as you're kind of speaking to a patient that helps a lot.
And if you're interviewing at a place, just ask about that because, uh, the more people ask about it, the more hospitals are going to invest in that.
So it's always helpful to have someone else doing the writing for you. If you're not uh able to have that or if that's not a set up that's, you know, going to happen at your hospital.
No worries. I've, you know, been in plenty of situations where that's not possible.
Um And, and there another hack that I've used is using templates. So I'll have my notes and a template and I basically will use the same template for that, you know, complaint.
So, you know, I have a template uh that's set up in computer for um chest pain, another template for diarrhea, another template for asthma.
And so just have those templates set up. And so that when you see those patients, you can just kind of knock those notes out really easy, also kind of triggers your memory to, to ask certain questions, right?
So that's the, that's the idea like make sure you have that little hack ready. So you're not spending all your time uh doing paperwork.
So um I have a couple of notes here. Another thing I like to do is bundle my work.
So again, this is still tip number one around how to, you know, get around the bureaucracy, bundling work means do all your notes at once.
Make sure you do all your discharges at once, make sure that you um if you have like four things to kind of run by the pharmacy, do all that at once.
So make sure that you have all your tasks kind of figured out. So you, no.
All right, I'm going to the pharmacy. Let me take care of these three different patients all at once or if I'm, you know, discharging do two discharges together.
So you're kind of like on a roll on that. So that's the kind of bundling that I, that I found very helpful.
Tip number two would be to make sure that you set up your personal uh boundaries, right? So you want to make sure that you have, you know, a specific time when you leave the hospital for me, that was a very specific 5 p.m.
I signed out my patients. I had no problem doing that.
I would make sure that, you know, I had all my kind of things tucked at five o'clock almost as if like you have an event to go to or you have to pick up someone or you have a meeting to go to.
There's really firm limits in terms of what time you get out of the hospital and really hold yourself to that. Like I got to get out at five and like, don't linger and so creating really firm limits about when you get into the hospital.
I had an end time. I wasn't just kind of always in the hospital.
Uh and tip number three is make sure you have a really solid, you know, work life balance. So the the part of that, all that often kind of uh suffers is the life.
So make sure that you're doing things that you enjoy doing. So, even in the middle of the, the hardest part of residency, I at least found time to read half a page of a book that I liked, you know, just always do that.
That's so important because the moment you stop doing that is when you start getting really frustrated and you start kind of taking that out on people.
So try to make sure that there's little things that you're doing. Um that really kind of save your, your sanity.
You know, for me, sometimes that would be uh taking a long walk uh outside. You know, if I know I've got, you know, 10 extra minutes, I'll just take a little walk outside or talking to friends.
I would make a habit of calling my friends right after. Uh I've had a really stressful kind of shift and I would, I would just go through the list if they're busy, I would just call the next one and then the next one.
So just kind of creating these little habits for yourself so that you have something to look forward to outside of just being in the hospital.
So again, tip number one, like kind of bureaucratic hacks so that you're not always feeling inundated with work for me, that was, you know, relying on medical scribes when that was available more often.
Uh they weren't available, of course. And so then, you know, using templates, making sure that I bundle my work tip number two, making sure you set firm limits on getting out of the hospital.
Uh, I rarely would see people um accomplish that. So it's a really hard thing to do.
And so just make sure that you're, you're on top of it, you're getting out every single day at the same time. And tip number three, make sure you have a really, really, uh, awesome kind of work life balance that there's something in your life that you're looking forward to and it doesn't have to be amazing.
You don't have to go out all the time or party all the time or whatever. But, but really just even little things that you really care about that you're taking advantage of, of doing those on a regular basis.
So those are the things that help me get through the stressful times. Um, and of course, talking to friends and, and decompressing until next time.
Take care guys. Bye bye.
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