Transcript edited for clarity.
I'm Amanda Waggoner, COMT, and after 35 years in ophthalmology, I’m here to talk about burnout. Burnout is pretty common and there are things that we can do to help ourselves when we're feeling burnt out. It is very important to recognize it because oftentimes by the time you're feeling stressed out, you're feeling like your energy is completely gone, you're already to that that point where you feel like you're going to break. So, for me, when I get feeling that way I know that it might be time to change something.
You have to start with very small goals to help you just start to reengage with patients—for example, I'm going to smile and make a compliment to every patient that I see today.
You want to also use that feeling of burnout to identify what is weighing you down—is it that you're seeing too many patients, is it that you're just not as interested, have you stopped learning? For me that's a big one. When I would find that I was feeling overwhelmed a lot of times it wasn't because I was overwhelmed with the work it was almost I was overwhelmed with the boredom. So one of the things I would do is really search for what sparked joy in my day and find ways that I could bring that in more. If that meant maybe I like to learn so I am really having fun when I use this 1 piece of equipment, maybe I should learn a little bit more about it and take that time to expand the area where you are feeling joy.
Also, it’s OK and absolutely fine to take a break—whether you are feeling overwhelmed in the moment and you need to walk into the bathroom and take 5 minutes just to breathe or if it’s winter time and people are calling out sick and it's been busy and you need to schedule yourself a mental health day. It's often hard for us to give ourselves permission to do that because the clinic is so busy, but the doctor needs me, etc., but it's also really important to fill your own bucket and to bring energy back to yourself.
And then if you're feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling burnt out this may also be telling you that this is the time to find something else. Not necessarily something else to learn but start looking on job boards, start looking on LinkedIn, start reaching out and seeing what changes could this be telling me that I might want to pursue. I would go and I would look up my dream jobs. And even though that wasn't a job that I could have pursued at that time, by looking at what the qualifications were, I was able to then work on some of those things myself to gain more skills and it did eventually lead to me being able to transition into what I was happier doing down the road when I had that time. So burnout can be stressful, it can be de-energizing but it can also be a wakeup call to really find what you need to be looking at or working at in your own life. And everybody feels it. OM
