A glimpse into White Coat Wellness Program, Day 2/42: What is Stealing Your Vitality?
Now that we have some ideas about what burnout is and how it may affect different aspects of your life—physical, emotional, and spiritual energy—the next question is: What is actually causing it?
Medical Economics reported the following results to the question, "What has contributed the most to your feelings of burnout?"
- Too much paperwork and regulations – 31%
- Work too many hours/poor work-life balance – 24%
- Electronic health records – 11%
- Lack of autonomy/career control – 10%
- COVID-19 pandemic – 9%
- Overwhelmed by patient needs – 9%
- Insufficient pay/declining reimbursements – 3%
After doing my own extensive research into the most common work-related burnout factors, I came up with the following compiled list:
- Excessive workloads (e.g., long work hours, frequent overnight call duties, and high work intensity)
- Loss of autonomy
- Work-home conflicts
- Loss of support from colleagues
- Deterioration in control and autonomy
- Lack of independence
- Insufficient rewards, toxic cultures
- Lack of fairness
- Electronic Medical Records (EMR)
- A decline in long-term relationships with patients
- Loss of meaning at work
- Healthcare system cutting corners due to productivity requirements, forcing doctors to make decisions that go against their core beliefs about what is best for the patient
If you are a practicing physician in mainstream healthcare, I am sure you can relate to most if not all, factors on this list. However, burnout is a very individual experience, and it can have different causes for each of us. It’s not necessary that burnout is caused by work alone. You may have a better understanding of your situation based on the Mission 1 exercise from the previous chapter. For one person, family and relationships can be the greatest source of restoration, while for someone else, family and relationships can be the main culprits causing burnout.
Ideally, we should have vibrant energy and vitality. You might see some people struggling to get by even after sleeping 12 hours a day, while others work literally 24/7 and are still energized and productive.
Where does that vitality come from? And where does all that vitality go when there’s no energy to get out of bed? Some answers to this question will come up in different topics, each describing different domains of life. There may be people with decent physical health but who are mentally drained due to dysfunctional emotional states and, as a result, appear tired all the time. Some people just don’t feel they are fulfilling their purpose, and that low spiritual energy account doesn’t support their motivation to move forward. Sometimes, it’s just not a good time, and we need to slow down, reflect, and process recent traumatic events to restore ourselves.
You might think you have deep burnout and need to fix it. Maybe coffee and energy drinks don’t work anymore, and you’re open to new suggestions because you want to feel more vitality! Just make sure you don’t fall into the hype and stereotype that you need to be 100% all the time—that's not true.
Remember, burnout is also a natural process, like pain or fever. Before you try to fix it, take a moment to think about the cause! There can be many reasons for a fever. Some are obvious, and some need further investigation and time to figure out. It’s a good idea to know the cause of a fever so we can develop an effective treatment plan.
The same goes for vitality issues. Take some extra time to reflect.
What is stealing your vitality?
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