Page 9 - Healthcare News Nov/Dec 2022

Michael Lynch
Michael Lynch
Barbara-Jean Deloria
Barrbara-Jean DelLorriia
Michael Moriarty
Michael Moriarty
James Michael Montemayor Davey
Henry "Hank" Downey
Henry "Hank" Downey
Joe Doug Kulig Gilbert
Joe Doug Kulig Gilbert
To us,
To us,
James Michael Montemayor Davey
Experience counts.
business is personal.
Experience counts.
business is personal.
So does your input.
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“The term has gained a lot of buzz over the past few years
— the pandemic has pulled the curtains back on this topic, which has really been there for a long time. I think we conflate it oftentimes with being tired or exhausted. People say, ‘I’m burned out today’ ... it’s a bigger issue than that.”
Indeed, burnout is, in most respects, a technical term. It doesn’t mean tired, or exhausted, or exasper- ated, he said, adding that there are several symptoms, and also what he called the “burnout spectrum” in which individuals experience some but perhaps not all of these symptoms.
“The term has gained a lot of buzz over the past few years — the pandemic has pulled the curtains back
on this topic, which has really been there for a long time,” he explained. “I think we conflate it oftentimes with being tired or exhausted. People say, ‘I’m burned out today’ ... it’s a bigger issue than that.
“The World Health Organization finally, in 2019, recognized that burnout was a workplace condition of unmanaged stress with three components,” he went on. “Exhaustion, for sure, whether we’re physically, mentally, or emotionally exhausted, but also cynicism and a lack of effectiveness; we don’t feel like we can get things done anymore, and we can start taking a cynical approach that things are never going to get
better — a mentality of ‘it is what it is.’ A true case of burnout involves all three of those symptoms, and there are people all across the burnout spectrum who might be dealing with one or two of those symptoms, but not all three.”
With that broad definition, and that list of symp- toms, which a great many individuals in business can relate to, how does one go about defeating burnout and put it behind them?
It starts, as Young said, with admitting that there is a problem, something he finally did, and then doing something about it rather than trying (almost always unsuccessfully) to tough it out, which is what ‘tough’ guys usually try to do.
For this issue, HCN talked with Young about burnout, his new book, and that concept of expansive intimacy, which, in his view, is the only way to get at the root of this problem.
Please see Burnout, page 66