104 | Conflict in the ED | Covid times | Long careers without burning out | Using what you do to define your identity | Limits to empathy |How do we solve interpersonal conflict in the ED?

How do we have long careers and avoid burnout?

Micah talks about burnout and how we have the advantage in emergency medicine that we can leave work at work and step back

Have time off and don’t work overtime every time an opportunity arises, don’t only discuss work with your spouse, have other interests that you can engage in

Emergency medicine is a fun job to identify with because we get to save lives, but you should not make it your whole personality

Find an identity outside of work, you may not have work at some point and life changes

Audrianna talks about taking care of yourself. As we spend so much time being empathetic for others, we can lose that empathy for family or even ourselves

We talk about the lower acuity patients we care for and infrastructure to take care of their complaint quickly from the ED, patients have poor access to primary care, and we can be that solution

We can’t use low acuity calls as something that burns us out or allows us to get frustrated, it will always be part of the job and we should view it as us being the solution

We can be educators, we are trained to recognize emergencies, the layperson shouldn’t be expected to know this

We have the privilege of taking care of everyone regardless of complaint, ability to pay, social status

Burnout begets burnout

Take the time off when you need it, overtime takes more from you than it may be worth

Certain seasons of life may necessitate working more but you have to understand the cost benefit

Just making it through COVID is a victory, it burned a lot of providers out, even those with experience

We recount some of our COVID war stories

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Everything you hear today from myself and my guests is opinion only and doesn’t represent any organizations or companies that any of us are affiliated with. The stories you hear have been modified to protect patient privacy and any resemblance to real individuals is coincidental. This is for educational and entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice nor used to diagnose any medical or healthcare conditions.