214: The Importance of Prioritizing Your Wellbeing To Prevent Burnout with Dr. Virgie Bright Ellington

“If you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of anyone else. And as caretakers, we are professional caretakers. It is completely true, although we like to think that it's not. We like to think that with our training and with our logic, that we can just overcome everything.” - Dr. Virgie Bright Ellington

Physicians across the country are feeling burned out. We’re committed to finding ways to decrease stress in our lives and maintain a healthy work-life balance. Between December 2021 and January 2022, about 2,500 US physicians took a survey conducted by researchers at the AMA, Mayo Clinic, Stanford University, and the University of Colorado. The survey results showed that 63% of physicians had at least one manifestation of burnout. If you're a physician, clinician, or healthcare worker and you're feeling burned out, not only are you not alone, you're likely a part of the majority. Dr. Virgie Bright Ellington is back on the show to have a frank conversation about burnout and the importance of prioritizing your own well-being in order to begin to shift your life. If you're not experiencing burnout, chances are you're already doing some of these things to protect your resilience and well-being. 

Dr. Bright Ellington is an internal medicine physician and medical billing expert. She earned her M.D. at the University of Michigan Medical School and trained at the Cambridge Hospital of Harvard Medical School. She's practiced in primary care and psychiatric settings and then transitioned her work into the insurance world where she became a health insurance executive. She's the author of the What Your Doctor Wants You to Know series, is a former NY1 News health contributor, and has been featured in Dallas News, several podcasts, and national magazines. You can hear my previous conversations with Dr. Bright Ellington in the episodes linked below.

Dr. Bright Ellington shares her amazing story of how she took control of her mental and physical health and well-being. Not only did she take the risk to shift her career, but she also had to battle breast cancer. If she hadn’t made the commitment to put herself first when she did, her diagnosis and road to recovery would have been much more difficult. In medical school, physicians are taught to be superhuman at all times, which just isn’t practical or sustainable. We discuss why you should put yourself and your family over your job, why it’s important to lean on friends, therapists, and coaches, and the importance of setting yourself up financially to take the leap.

What’s Inside:

• Dr. Bright Ellington’s transformative story of how she overcame burnout and breast cancer.
• Why you should prioritize your well-being and your family over work.
• The importance of setting yourself up financially before stepping away from a career.

Mentioned In This Episode:

• DocWorking.com
• 26: Physician Burnout: Proactive Steps You Can Take Today
• 195: Americans and Crushing Medical Debt with Dr. Virgie Bright Ellington
• 210: One Physician’s Journey into Non-Clinical Work with Dr. Virgie Bright-Ellington
• [e-mail]

Find full transcripts of DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast episodes on the DocWorking Blog

The past few weeks have been busy at DocWorking! We have been working behind the scenes to add even more CME credits to th