I got to a point in my working career where I completely burned out. Recent comments on this blog have mentioned burnout as well. Once you’re burnt out in a job, in my experience, there’s no turning back. You need a complete change of scene in order to move on.
When I was burnt out, my work completely consumed me. I felt tremendous pressure from all aspects of my job. I’d been forced to take on extra work and responsibility with no thought from my superiors about my expanding workload. My superiors were unsympathetic and one actually told me that I wasn’t being asked to take on more than anyone else in the department. I’d be at my desk at 7am. I was gripped with chronic insomnia and daytime sleepiness. I worked tirelessly but mostly unproductively and to a reduced standard with no thought for my own wellbeing and for no extra credit or recognition. I got every cold or cough going around. I was too tired to do any exercise after work. I absolutely dreaded getting up and going to work in the morning. The world could have opened up and swallowed me whole. I’d collapse in a heap on Friday night after work and spend all weekend dreading Monday morning. I was horrible to be around and the relationship with my husband strained. I felt terrible. I knew the root cause of my burnout, it was the increasingly strained relationship with my manager at the time.
How did I dig myself out of such a hole? I left. I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I sought treatment for depression. Leaving that job was the best move of my career to date. I was upfront with my new manager about my recent experiences. I haven’t looked back.
In researching this post it didn’t surprise me to learn that the highest levels of burnout are found in health professionals. As acute hospital clinicians, we pay a high price for caring and working with people in medically complex, emotional and highly stressful situations. Often despite our best intentions and appropriate treatment, outcomes for patients can be negative and heartbreaking. Unfortunately some patients in acute hospitals die. Taking this on every day is a tremendous burden for health professionals that’s largely unrecognized by the profession and our managers. Couple this with inadequate staffing, large caseloads, limited time to participate in activities beyond clinical work and limited prospects for career advancement and enhancement and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
If you’re nodding your head reading this post thinking, yep, I’m there, do something about it! There’s plenty of excellent resources online to assist in recognizing and treating burnout in health professionals. One of my favorite bloggers recently posted on happiness and burnout. She includes an excellent self-assessment to determine if you’re at burnout point and other useful links on the subject. Another useful post I found specifically for health professionals is here.
Don’t ignore the signs of burnout, in yourself or your colleagues. When you’re in the throws of it, burnout is soul-destroying and destructive. Seek help if you need it.
Posted in burnout, career, health professional, jobs, management, speech language pathologist, speech language therapy, speech pathologist, speech pathology, speech therapist, speech therapy, stress, workplace | Tags: burnout, career, speech language pathology, speech pathologist, speech pathology, stress, workplace
