Dr. Amy King is doing amazing things with her work as a clinical psychologist, including working with physicians.

Through her podcast, The Most Important Medicine,  Dr. Amy is helping others to build resilience and respond to trauma. As she writes on her website, “I consult with professionals and organizations to increase connection by understanding trauma, resilience and begin to heal the patients and families they serve.” For physicians [and other healthcare professionals], there is The Provider Lounge, where likeminded people can come together, find support, and even gain CME for engaging. During these times of burnout, moral injury, physicians leaving medicine, we need to take care of ourselves.

I have had the pleasure of having several discussions with Dr. Amy, and this is not the end of a collaborative relationship. Below you will find the points covered in the episode, but there is more. With her work and expertise, it is difficult to minimize such rich knowledge and conversation to bullet points.

Topics Discussed in this Episode:

• Physicians are resilient.  The system does not allow an environment to be resilient all the time [it is the system, not the physician.]

• Women are more likely to burnout [thanks social norms.]

• Stress to overwhelm to burnout [it is a spectrum].

• Overwhelm is the precursor to burnout.

• Cures for overwhelm [key word is overwhelm, not burnout.]

• Play is still important as an adult with a career.

• Work through your feelings

• Vulnerability to extend a branch.

• Duality is possible.  I love practicing medicine and I feel like I have to be a robot.

• Be a whole person and set boundaries.

Originally Published on https://www.theworthyphysician.com/blog

Sapna Shah-Haque Internal Medicine Physician

Dr. Sapna Shah-Haque, MD is a board certified Internal Medicine physician. She was born and raised in Kansas, and attended medical school at the University of Kansas [KU] School of Medicine. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at KU-Wichita as well. After experiencing burnout herself, and watching other physician colleagues burn out, it became a passion of hers to look into different aspects of burnout. While the system does need to change, as it is broken, this podcast is a way to reach physicians and possibly shed light on what is not an isolated situation.