Physician Wellness

I appreciate this conversation and previous of the same nature. I burnt out years ago in retrospect . Severe panic attacks which resolved. About 3 years ago became depressed/anxiety . Kept looking for a less busy ED as solution. In December 2013 crashed and burned landing up in Hospital . Mayo clinic as was working in MN at time . 8 Weeks in Houston at Menninger's clinic . As if someone stole my soul. Scared of everything. Work in Occupational medicine which is of no interest . I wish I never went into medicine . I have no other skills and at 58 years old feel trapped . Medicine in the US(originally from Canada) is a business . Just venting as know no answers to my situation .
Thanks

Thanks for your response

God bless Tim!

I was really inspired by this talk. I work in a critical access hospital as a nurse practitioner hospitalist, and while I haven't felt burnout until now, I could see that burnout was rampant among most departments. I decided to start my own multi-disciplinary burnout prevention committee. We are small enough (maybe 150 employees) that I started by gathering support from the masses. It was a lot of 1:1 talk. When I felt I had enough support from each department, I approached the CEO. The management team made it clear that it wasn't a problem that a lot of money could be thrown at. It took some work getting non-salary employees paid to attend meetings, but we were successful. Our committee was well-received. We started working meetings monthly and "unofficial" meetings every two weeks where we would simply meet for dinner and drinks. The turnout was amazing, over time. Last unofficial meeting we had a surgeon sitting next to a housekeeper next to a nurse anesthetist, next to doctors, nurses, a speech therapist. The working meetings came out with a 5 minute multi-disciplinary huddle at the end of the day, much like they do after surgeries, where we talk about what went well, what could have gone better, and how we will do it better tomorrow. Simple cheap intervention. We did two practice runs, when the three nurse managers thought we needed a more concrete plan and that we didn't have any staff support. Those practice runs were amazing! I have never seen such turnout. It was very positive and really got people across departments talking. I really didn't expect much from such a small intervention. Anyways, we got shut down. Those 3 nurse managers weren't invited individually to the practice runs, because they wanted a concrete plan before they'd agree to participate. They have now been making me jump through hoops for two months, trying to get this to go forward. They have attacked me personally. They tried to say this intervention will cost our hospital $4000/month (I don't know how they came up with that). The CEO is supportive, but strangely they are over-riding him. They have a different role than is usual. In some ways they take more power because we use nurse practitioners and nurse anesthetists. They are all three associate degree RNs, none with experience in management prior to this and 2 out of 3 with only maybe 2 years of floor nursing experience. At this point, I am now also feeling burned out (remember I wasn't when I started this thing). I feel like I can't win. I'm starting to hate going in to work every day. The staff have been very vocal that they want this. I was accused of starting, and I quote, a "mutany." I guess I need some advice and feedback. Then I remembered that I have this community out there online, of like-minded individuals. I've never commented before, but I could really use your help.