Beyond the Burnout: Intentional Living in Healthcare

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[00:01:08] Welcome to the Health IT slash Hit Like a Girl podcast.

[00:01:12] Boom.

[00:01:14] This is a show that we talk about mostly healthcare and how complicated healthcare is and each one of our guests holds a piece of that puzzle of just like, hey, where are you contributing? Where are you participating in the healthcare system? And can you share with our audience? And so I usually ask people to introduce themselves and share their piece of the puzzle, but ultimately, I want to get into the business of no.

[00:01:34] So let's please take a minute to introduce yourself.

[00:01:38] Okay. I'm Dr. Shala Izzakoli. I'm an internist. I'm a physician coach. That's what I spend most of my time doing. I'm an author of eight books and I'm a speaker as well.

[00:01:48] I basically help doctors who are in burnout and career transitions, make those transitions effectively and defeat burnout as well, because burnout is very prevalent in our society.

[00:01:59] And the talk about burnout is very multifaceted. Burnout is not a meditation deficiency. Burnout is not a lack of resilience. Burnout is not the fault of the person suffering the burnout.

[00:02:13] So this is my answer to that, to help doctors prioritize themselves so that they can be less burned out, stop killing ourselves. And not only that, but have whole wellness and be happy doing what we spent so many years trying to.

[00:02:29] Okay. So how did you transition? If you had spent so many years learning to be a doctor, how did you get transition into these conversations around burnout and ultimately holding boundaries around saying no things?

[00:02:42] Yes. Thank you very much for that question. Long story short or short story long, I burnt out really badly very early in my career. And I put it this way. I say I was very fortunate to burn out early because I burned out in my intern year in residency. It was like a perfect storm.

[00:02:59] I had a small baby. I had moved from a new country, new marriage, inefficient childcare, super duper high learning curve.

[00:03:08] Before I came here, I was working in outpatients in England where we saw maybe 10 patients a day.

[00:03:13] And I was a junior doctor, no real problems. And I come in here into residency in one of the busiest hospitals in Chicago.

[00:03:20] I was having a lot of trouble with the workload at home and at work. I was very depressed.

[00:03:25] Somehow along the way, it got better because I took support of people who were offering it and I started leaning back into my hobbies.

[00:03:31] But by the time I graduated from residency, I wanted to build my career around my life and not my life around my career.

[00:03:39] And I wanted to help other doctors. So that was how I became a coach and became a speaker and an author, wrote my book for doctors.

[00:03:47] And the rest, as they say, is her story.

[00:03:49] I love that. I love that. So tell us about your books and also really like when you are saying no to things, you have to be very intentional about it because that is opening up what you can say yes to.

[00:04:02] Precisely. I think that you should start with. So let me talk about my books first.

[00:04:06] I have my books there, there on Amazon. There's one for doctors called Physician Heal Yourself.

[00:04:10] And it's 10 Remedies for Complete Life Makeover for Doctors. So very easy read.

[00:04:16] People can just read it and put things into practice because my books are written like that for people to actually take something away, not just a philosophical discourse.

[00:04:24] And I also have my latest book, Free to Be, the Empowered Woman's Handbook.

[00:04:28] That one's for women, mostly professional women kind of space that I play in.

[00:04:32] That's also on Amazon. But sorry, what was your other question?

[00:04:35] How you have to be really intentional about your no's so that you can decide what you're going to say yes to.

[00:04:41] I think it's the other way around. You have to be intentional about your yes.

[00:04:44] Now, for me, let me give you an example. I know that my family is very important to me, but also my business, the work I do with other physicians, very important to me.

[00:04:55] People ask me, how do you write books and do this and speak and do everything and still have a career and all that?

[00:04:59] I say, because I know what's important to me and I put those things first.

[00:05:03] When you put the things that are important to you first, it actually does become easier to say no to what I call low level work.

[00:05:10] And I'm using that phrase very carefully because what's low level to one person is not low level to another.

[00:05:16] But that doesn't make it any less meaningful. It's just that what has meaning to me may not have meaning to you and vice versa.

[00:05:22] It's OK. For example, career wise, for some people, climbing up the career ladder and getting titles is very important.

[00:05:28] And it's great. So if that's important to you, then say yes to things along that line.

[00:05:34] For me, it is not. I'm not interested in being a careerist as a physician per se.

[00:05:39] So if you come up to me and say, oh, we want you to be a medical director and blah, blah, blah.

[00:05:43] And in the last nine months, I've been offered four medical director roles.

[00:05:47] But I'm like, no, it's not important to me because I want to be able to say, you know what?

[00:05:51] I want to work one day a week this week and for the next two weeks, just go off to where you live and come spend some time with you.

[00:05:59] So what is important to you has to drive your actions so that you're not living by default and you're living by design.

[00:06:07] So where some people say if it's not a hell yes, it's a no.

[00:06:10] Exactly.

[00:06:11] Yeah.

[00:06:11] Yes.

[00:06:12] I firmly believe that.

[00:06:13] I do too.

[00:06:14] But it's such a hard lesson, to be honest.

[00:06:16] And there's been times in my life where I thought, oh, I've gotten really good about setting a boundary in this area of my life to only see it pop up in all a million other areas that I have yet to make and maintain the same boundary.

[00:06:30] And it backfires in the worst possible ways.

[00:06:34] Yep.

[00:06:34] And I loved listening to you speak.

[00:06:37] And this was a year ago at the Women in Medicine Summit where you're literally saying and advising us all to say, no, sorry, I have an appointment.

[00:06:44] And even if that appointment is watching the paint dry.

[00:06:46] Yes.

[00:06:47] That's perfectly fine.

[00:06:48] Because watching the paint dry is good for your mental health sometimes.

[00:06:54] And I think that more people need to hear around like, OK, why do we feel compelled to say yes to so many things?

[00:07:02] And you highlighted many reasons.

[00:07:04] So can we talk about some of those?

[00:07:06] Yes, of course.

[00:07:07] So I think one of the biggest things as women is not our fault.

[00:07:12] So even when I do these talks, I try to make people realize that this is not our fault.

[00:07:17] But the fact that it's not our fault doesn't mean it's not our responsibility to heal from them.

[00:07:22] They took away your agency when you were a child.

[00:07:24] You were conditioned that if you said yes, it means you were a good girl.

[00:07:29] If you were compliant, it means you were a good girl.

[00:07:32] I am so fortunate in that.

[00:07:34] I jokingly refer to my father as my first feminist.

[00:07:37] My father wasn't that invested in your...

[00:07:40] Of course, he wants you to be good and that kind of thing.

[00:07:43] Like you get good grades and all that.

[00:07:44] But my parents actually raised me to stand up for myself.

[00:07:48] Congrats to them and congrats to you.

[00:07:51] So even though my father was silent generation, my mom was a boomer because I saw them model that.

[00:07:57] It's like they're not living so much according to societal expectations.

[00:08:01] No, this is what we want to do.

[00:08:02] And it's fine for you to do X, Y, and Z.

[00:08:04] OK, so but if you are challenging authority or questioning authority, has that ever backfired?

[00:08:10] Or do you just guess what?

[00:08:12] Somebody didn't like it and I've gotten comfortable with disappointing somebody.

[00:08:15] It does backfire from time to time.

[00:08:17] OK.

[00:08:18] However, I think that the amount of consequences I would have imagined would have happened were really not that bad.

[00:08:26] Let me give an example.

[00:08:27] Once long ago, we were hired internal medicine.

[00:08:30] A friend and I were hired to be internists.

[00:08:33] And our boss said, you all need to do pap smears on your patients.

[00:08:37] And we said, we're not even set up for this.

[00:08:41] We don't even have one single stirrup.

[00:08:44] What do you want me to do?

[00:08:45] And came to find out that within the organization, generally speaking, all the people that wanted pap smears, they went to gyne.

[00:08:51] Even one family practice doctor wasn't doing pap smears.

[00:08:54] So we looked at each other and were like, no, we're not going to do pap smears.

[00:08:58] We're going to send them to gyne too, as everybody else does.

[00:09:01] Of course, the thinking for us, oh, the boss says you have to do it.

[00:09:05] We just were like, no, we would just see our straightforward medical cases, which were a lot anyway.

[00:09:12] And we made money for the organization and it was fine.

[00:09:15] So you see, if we had just taken on more extra work, we wouldn't have been able to do our best work.

[00:09:20] Right.

[00:09:21] Because how do you want someone to do pap smears and you don't even have stirrups in the office?

[00:09:24] Oh, Lord.

[00:09:25] That was a bad idea.

[00:09:27] You shouldn't have asked me in the first place.

[00:09:29] But the things that I think that we say yes to is because a lot of times like we don't want, we want to be liked or we just feel like, oh, we were asked.

[00:09:38] I want to, we want to help somebody.

[00:09:41] And also there's the need to be needed.

[00:09:44] That is the other one that I really like that you bring up.

[00:09:48] And then I feel like there's a relationship with our, I can speak personally about it.

[00:09:53] It is just like, oh yeah, there's so many things that I have said yes to.

[00:09:56] And at one point in my life, I looked around and I said, I have way more volunteer opportunities and projects that are going on or unpaid committees or contributions that I'm making that I don't even have time left for the things that are going to make my life go.

[00:10:14] Exactly. And you might not even have time left for those same committees that you volunteer for because it means so much you can do.

[00:10:19] And it's just, it feels like a trap.

[00:10:21] And I don't know if women are falling into this.

[00:10:24] Is it something that we do to ourselves or is it something that we do to each other even?

[00:10:28] Because I think that there's also a relationship where we'll ask our women friends to do stuff that is unpaid or as a favor.

[00:10:36] And that can be really hard to learn how to say no to people that you might think are your good friends.

[00:10:42] Exactly.

[00:10:43] But I have this good friend.

[00:10:45] She will call me at a random time.

[00:10:47] And if I don't feel like picking up the phone, I won't.

[00:10:49] And if she doesn't feel like picking up the phone, she won't.

[00:10:51] And we do not hold it against each other.

[00:10:54] I know she's around because she just posted something on Facebook, but she doesn't feel like talking right now.

[00:10:58] Look, I have never thought less of her for not picking up my calls because I value her friendship.

[00:11:04] I value her friendship more than I value her compliance with what I want.

[00:11:08] And I think when it comes to friends, we need to have that lens, you know, and think to yourself,

[00:11:14] if somebody doesn't want me to say no to them, are they really a friend or are they just trying to use me because I'm a low hanging fruit that will say yes easily and not give any pushback?

[00:11:25] That was one of the pieces I really liked about what you've been talking about, which is people that were somebody who says yes to things.

[00:11:32] We basically set ourselves up to be used.

[00:11:35] Yes, we do.

[00:11:36] And then we can't meet all those obligations.

[00:11:38] I knew a gentleman once who would say yes to so many things, but then he'll be running.

[00:11:44] Okay, so I'll just give an example.

[00:11:45] I promised to help somebody move at 11 o'clock.

[00:11:48] It's too long.

[00:11:49] And I promised to help somebody move at 1 o'clock.

[00:11:50] Now, the guy you promised at 1 o'clock is mad at you because you promised.

[00:11:53] Why not just keep the 11 o'clock, help that person, tell the 1 o'clock guy, I'm sorry I can't help you.

[00:11:59] I'm doing something else.

[00:12:01] And let him find his own solution.

[00:12:02] So it can backfire spectacularly because we end up being overcommitted.

[00:12:07] And it's good to have a few things that you do very well.

[00:12:11] One committee or two or even three, but 32 is a lot.

[00:12:16] And you're not serving on all those committees.

[00:12:18] And you know somebody who has been on 32 committees?

[00:12:21] A client of mine.

[00:12:23] That's the point I wish people come to me.

[00:12:24] They're like, oh, wow, I have too much going on.

[00:12:26] I'm sleeping at 3 a.m.

[00:12:28] Why are you sleeping at 3 a.m.?

[00:12:29] I have committee work to do.

[00:12:30] Why are you doing committee work?

[00:12:31] Are they paying you for these committees?

[00:12:32] No.

[00:12:33] Somebody said it would be good for me to...

[00:12:36] Okay, let's stop.

[00:12:37] Make a list of the committees you want to be on in order of importance.

[00:12:41] And then start to hand off some of the others to somebody else who really just wants to do that.

[00:12:47] Because believe me, sometimes we have all these opportunities, but there are other people who have zero.

[00:12:52] You have 30 that you're not even using.

[00:12:54] Why not give away 10 to someone who has the time, the energy, and is going to be only too grateful that you actually brought them on board.

[00:13:03] I really like that framing of just saying, hey, guess what?

[00:13:06] I don't want to take all these opportunities for myself.

[00:13:09] Exactly.

[00:13:09] I should share.

[00:13:11] And by saying no, I'm giving somebody else an opportunity to say yes.

[00:13:15] Exactly.

[00:13:15] That's wonderful.

[00:13:16] Dr. Shola, if people want to follow you, be coached by you, learn from you, where do you...

[00:13:24] If you go to physicianhealyourself.life, I have a masterclass on there, free.

[00:13:29] Just type in your email.

[00:13:30] You get a class on burnout prevention.

[00:13:32] And it's a robust, if I say so myself, you actually have steps in there that can start to walk back burnout.

[00:13:39] And I also have a career coaching program on that same site.

[00:13:42] Just click on it and then you can book a free call and we can talk and see where that takes.

[00:13:46] Okay, wonderful.

[00:13:47] Thank you so much for everything that you do and for teaching us how to be better to ourselves.

[00:13:52] It's really powerful work.

[00:13:54] So thank you.

[00:13:55] Thank you.

[00:13:55] Because saving the lives of others should not cost us our own.

[00:13:59] Amen.

[00:14:00] Snap to that.

[00:14:03] Thank you, ma'am.

[00:14:05] Thanks for listening.

[00:14:06] You can learn more about us or this guest by going to our website or visiting us on any of the socials with the handle HitLikeAGirlPod.

[00:14:14] Thanks again.

[00:14:15] See you soon.

[00:14:16] Again, thank you so much for listening to the Hit Like a Girl podcast.

[00:14:19] I am truly grateful for you.

[00:14:21] And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor.

[00:14:24] Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave us a rating or review?

[00:14:29] Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend?

[00:14:34] All those things help us podcasters out so much.

[00:14:37] I'm the show's host, Joy Rios, and I'll see you next time.