What is burnout and how can one prevent it?
Burnout is the fourth time you hit your alarm going off at 4 am and you just can’t get out of bed.
Burnout is walking straight out of the hospital when your shift ends even though you see a patient’s family member crying in the hall and you don’t stop.
Burnout is snapping at a colleague, yelling at a nurse, or tossing an instrument back down on a tray in a huff.
Burnout is walking out of a patient’s room and deciding you don’t care about their health either, since clearly they don’t.
Burnout is hanging up with a consulting service and calling the other doctor a moron.
Burnout is wondering if there is any way you could quit this life and pick a different job.
Burnout is coming home and not kissing the people you love and walking straight to the bedroom to strip down and get in the shower or to the kitchen to pour a drink or to the couch to forget it all.
Burnout is calling out sick to work because you can’t do it one more day.
Burnout is fatalism. Burnout is exhaustion. Burnout is tears or screaming or silence.
The truth is that everyone in medicine experiences burnout in one form or another at least once during their career. You go to work and you give 110% of yourself.
You give until you’re exhausted and you can’t do it anymore–and that’s when we have to fall back on the things that sustain us.
And so, recovery is Sunday morning brunch with a friend you haven’t seen in a year.
Recovery is date night and two glasses of wine and entwined fingers.
Recovery is a hug from your mom when she whispers she’s proud of you.
Recovery is a hard run where your lungs burn and your muscles ache.
Recovery is windows down and music up.
Recovery is a text message from your brother with a memory from childhood you had forgotten.
Recovery is spontaneous 10pm baking sessions.
Recovery is your favorite book and a cup of tea
Recovery is your dad’s worst dad joke.
Recovery is taking the time for yourself and taking time for the people you love the most.
Burnout is real, but recovery is possible. :)
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