Professional burnout can happen to anybody in any field, but it tends to be the most prevalent among healthcare providers. Being a physician in particular, is an emotionally and physically draining profession that can easily affect one’s physical health as well as their ability to practice medicine and care for patients.
Now more than ever, physicians in Canada are at risk of burning out. Fortunately, there are a few methods that can be used to help reduce the risk of burnout and improve the overall well-being of physicians. Let’s dive in and discuss some of these strategies.
Manage Stress Levels
Although it may sound obvious, one of the most important and effective ways to reduce the risk of burnout is by managing your stress levels throughout the day. It’s recommended that you do so by scheduling out short breaks to take throughout your shift. During these breaks, take a moment to practice deep breathing and try to clear your mind from any stressors.
If possible, you should also try to make time for relaxing activities such as yoga or meditation. These are proven to be great ways to reduce stress hormones and improve your overall mood, as well as your physical health.
Set Boundaries
Just as you would with a personal relationship, it’s important to set boundaries within your profession as well. You know yourself better than anyone, so you need to make sure that you’re setting realistic boundaries with your workload and creating realistic expectations for yourself.
Remember: work smarter, not harder! By not going overboard with work and burning out, you’re setting yourself up for a longer and more prosperous career.
Connect With Colleagues
Supportive relationships with colleagues can help to create a buffer against common symptoms of burnout such as isolation and loneliness. Try to spend some time with coworkers outside of work, doing some non-work related activities such as getting coffee together and chatting.
You can also connect with other physicians by joining a professional association such as The Canadian Medical Association (CMA). By connecting with similar professionals outside of work, you’ll be able to bond over shared experiences and have a support system that can recognize when you may be on the brink of burning out.
Prioritize Self-Care
Proper self-care is essential for reducing burnout symptoms. In addition to taking regular breaks throughout the day to stay energized, make sure that you also eat healthy meals throughout the day and get enough sleep each night so you wake up feeling refreshed every morning.
Exercise is another major component of self-care. Working out a few times a week will do wonders for your emotional and physical health. If you remain sedentary, your stress may build up and cause you to experience a decline in your emotional and physical health.
On top of that, you should make sure to take vacations away from work when possible. Just a few days spent relaxing can be extremely beneficial for avoiding burnout. You should also practice mindfulness techniques throughout the day, and most importantly, ask for help if needed.
Utilize Technology
With the proper technology, your job can become much less time-consuming, providing you with more free time for all sorts of healthy, non-work related activities. Digital solutions can be used at work to streamline processes in order to free up more time for physicians while still providing quality care to patients.
These technologies include digital medical records systems, EMR software solutions, e-prescribing, and many others. All of these solutions can help automate mundane tasks such as scheduling, billing and patient communication.
In turn, you will save time for physicians by eliminating manual processes that can lead to additional stress or fatigue over time, resulting in burnout. No one wants to spend hours combing through patient databases just to find a single piece of information.
Get the Right Technology for Your Canadian Healthcare Organization
Burnout among healthcare professionals is a persistent issue in Canada. However, there are a number of different strategies that doctors can use to avoid burnout and maintain their own physical health, allowing them to continue providing quality care for their patients.
By managing stress levels, setting boundaries, connecting with colleagues, prioritizing self-care, and utilizing technology solutions where available, Canadian doctors can effectively reduce their risk of burnout while continuing to provide excellent care for their patients.
To offload many of the recurring administrative tasks that physicians are tasked with managing, PulseCheck has you covered. Our systems are built by Canadians for Canadian physicians overseeing emergency departments.
Prevent physician burnout and streamline your operations today. Contact us anytime to schedule a demo.