- So let's let's talk about burnout. I'm sure most of you in the room have heard of the term burnout or
maybe even experienced burnout. How many people in this room have worked in health care at some
point? Okay so a fair number. How about just general human service work - so directly working with others.
Yeah okay. So burnout is specifically described as a phenomena that can occur when you're working
closely with other humans, initially designed for hospitals and now used in schools and actually
corporations as well. So the first level of burnout is an emotional exhaustion, and that is the
everyday emotional labor of working with others. So we think of physical labor as you know I - Here I am.
I got to build this house. There's a lot of there's a lot of wood to move. There's a lot of hammering
to do. You can tell I don't build houses. And then we have the emotional labor of lifting and holding
up that kind of face of - Here I am and I'm present and I'm listening and I'm taking in what you're
telling me - and that that emotional labor can have a toll. It's not in and of itself terrible and
anyone who's working in human service agencies and human service settings there will be some level of
exhaustion. Just hearing and the volume of hearing people who are struggling. When things start to get
a little bit worse is when people feel that what they do doesn't make a difference. That there's a
lack of purpose, a lack of meaning or efficacy. Now what we've seen is when people feel that
what they do makes a difference they can actually sustain a lot more difficulty for a longer amount
of time. But when because of paperwork, or because of our own feelings of limitations we feel that
the work just isn't making a difference it's almost intolerable. And that can lead to this
depersonalization, also sometimes called just a cynicism. Every one of us I'm sure has worked
was at least one person who had reached that level of burnout where they just didn't care.
They were there but they weren't really there. They showed up physically to the job but they didn't make any
effort and they're just distancing. Now that level of burnout even if you have one person on a team
with that can just make a huge impact. And when we think about how do we reach these people with this
level of burnout there's not a lot of evidence for us to draw on. And when we look at emotional
exhaustion we can apply some basic strategies of emotional awareness, but with depersonalization I
think we actually have to start thinking about how to improve people's experience of efficacy
and meaning. How do we help them maybe remember that what they do does make a difference. One of
the reasons burnout is so incredibly prevalent in healthcare, we have trainees who the average
number is nationally is that residents have about 50 to 80 percent burnout in their first
three years or their or their three years of residency. And my my hypothesis having worked
with this population is that they have such a strong emphasis on helping others. What they do
makes a difference if they help others. However you can't always help others. Due to limitations
in the system. Due to limitations in your training experience. Due the limitations of your patients
who maybe won't follow up or don't have the resources. So if your entire sense of success
is based on your patients doing okay, it could be easier to fall into that lack of meaning.