The Burnout Antidote: Infusing Well-being into Healthcare Culture

In 2020, forty million people in the United States had a substance use disorder and only 6.5 percent received treatment. Healthcare providers are not immune to substance use disorders and other addictions. Some studies indicate that stress, burnout, exposure to death and trauma, access to prescription medication, and a culture of fear of stigma and loss of license are contributing factors for healthcare providers turni...

Common humanity, one of the three components of self-compassion, the antidote to burnout, is strengthened by sharing our unique stories. We can build empathy and support the humanity involved in healthcare by honoring and elevating the lived experience of healthcare providers and patients. In this episode, co-hosts Amy and Paul speak to Scott Acord and Michael Drummond from the Providence Institute for Human Caring abo...

What are your experiences and feelings toward your healthcare system’s EMR? Love it? Hate it? What about the growth of AI in healthcare? Tech in healthcare has given us incredible advancements that have saved lives. At the same time, the rate at which technology is created and implemented may be outpacing our ability to adjust to the impact on operational systems, policies, and the human beings providing care. In this ...

The urgent and critical need of standing up large scale telehealth capabilities at the beginning of the 2020 COVID epidemic dramatically launched virtual care into our everyday healthcare practices. We saw the benefits and efficiencies for both patient and provider. At the same time, we quickly learned and experienced the pitfalls. In this episode, co-hosts Amy and Paul explore the intersection of burnout and telehealt...

This week’s episode includes a powerful story of the toll burnout can take on us, challenging our perception of our values and who we are. In this episode, we continue our burnout recovery journey by diving even deeper into the concepts and experiences of moral distress and moral injury. Co-hosts Amy and Paul reflect on the story of a clinician who found himself wondering what kind of person and healthcare provider he ...

Life is a series of experiences, good, bad, and otherwise. How do we make it through demanding work responsibilities when we face tough times in our personal lives? In this episode, co-hosts Amy and Paul talk about living in two worlds - our work life and our personal life, and the advantages and disadvantages of compartmentalization. They describe strategies for supporting colleagues and yourself as a healthcare clini...

The skipped lunches, extra shifts, completing charting after your workday was supposed to end, fitting in the extra patient - we often go above and beyond to meet the needs of our patients in a stretched healthcare system. But running ourselves into the ground is not helping anyone. 

In this episode, co-hosts Amy and Paul talk about how to balance care delivery and taking care of your personal health when ...

One in five U.S. adults experience a mental health condition each year.* What happens when the healer is also healing? As a healthcare clinician, do you feel like you have the space, resources, and support to take care of your own mental health? In this episode, co-hosts Amy and Paul discuss the experiences of healthcare clinicians who have a mental health condition, associated stigma, seeking help, and integrating our...

Healthcare providers can both experience trauma while providing care and they can also be exposed to secondary trauma, or hearing about the direct traumatic experiences of another person. In this episode, co-hosts Amy and Paul define primary and secondary trauma, common responses to trauma, and how colleagues and healthcare leaders can build support for clinicians that experience trauma while delivering care. Our clini...

Fear. Anger. Guilt. Shame. 

These are emotions individuals might feel after having a traumatic experience as a healthcare professional. Healthcare workers know they’ll be exposed to human suffering and care for people at some of the worst and most vulnerable moments in their life. But there are some experiences that are more than a “bad day.” How can healing professionals process these experiences so that ...

Facing discrimination from workplace colleagues or your patients can not only cause pain and trauma at a personal level, but can also add turmoil to an already stressful environment. How can workplaces build psychological safety and protect their employees against intentional discrimination and implicit bias? In this episode, clinicians and co-hosts Amy Pearlman and Paul Deger listen to the stories of two healthcare cl...

We have all felt the discomfort of systemic racism, social unrest, or discrimination in our personal lives. In this episode, co-hosts Amy Pearlman and Paul Deger focus on what that means to our work lives in healthcare. Our guest clinician describes their perspectives on healthcare disparities and using their voice to advocate for change and equity. 

Conversations related to these topics may be uncomfortab...

Representation and including diverse voices at the healthcare table not only helps prevent burnout for providers, but also positively impacts their patients. In this episode, co-hosts Amy and Paul explore the impact of under-representation in healthcare on marginalized communities. We also hear from Juliana, a doctor who immigrated to the United States, who describes her journey navigating systems and culture, empathiz...

Healthcare workers have a unique window into humanity and are often exposed to suffering. In this episode, Paul and Amy reflect on the impact of repeated exposure to suffering on healthcare workers’ empathy and compassion. If you’ve ever felt the pressure to be a healthcare hero, but have realized even heroes are human beings with limits, this episode is for you. 

Our Hosts:

Amy Pearlman, MSW,...

Does work-life balance feel impossible? Sometimes the stress we feel at work or home seems to creep into the other place. How can we think about these two distinct parts of ourselves and acknowledge and manage the stress of both? In this episode, Amy and Paul hear from two healthcare clinicians who share their experience dealing with incredible amounts of stress at work and home, what they learned about our common huma...

What does a frog have to do with burnout? Hosts Amy Pearlman and Paul Deger draw the surprising connection while discussing culture as a systemic driver of burnout and moral distress among healthcare workers. Amy and Paul lay everything out on the table - the good, the bad, and the ugly - so that we can learn from it, evaluate our current situation, and build a better culture. We also hear from Elyssa, an ICU nurse, wh...

Our healthcare community is hurting. Recent surveys indicate that 38% of healthcare workers report anxiety and depression, 43% experience work overload, 49% report burnout, and 1 in 10 medical students report feeling suicidal ideation. As a healthcare worker, you’ve probably been given a list of self-care tips to help you be more resilient. We’re challenging the healthcare system to think about this differently. How do...

Healthcare burnout is real. How do we find our way back to well-being? How can we be present in our work healing others? 

We need a new conversation beyond “just meditate or take a walk.” We need a discussion that listens to our pain, asks hard questions and finds the joy and purpose lost along the way. 

Join hosts Amy Pearlman, MSW, LICSW, and Paul Deger, MA, LPC, PT, as they honor the storie...