How to avoid burnout after medical school

In this first episode of the Medical Post’s three-part series on physician burnout, we start by examining the first part of a physician’s journey: medical school. Emma Anderson, who is both the wellness representative and the student support team representative of her class, gives us insight into how to incorporate self care into one’s life from the very beginning. Transcript Misia Lerska: Welcome to our health, the medical post’s new three part series on physician wellness. My name is Misia Lerska, and I'm a visual storyteller. As I started to delve into the topic of physician wellness, I noticed many physicians mentioning that their experience leading to burnout started in medical school. The best place to start the series for me is therefore at the very beginning of a doctor's trajectory. I'm delighted to introduce my guest, Emma Anderson, a second year student of medicine at the Max Rady College of Medicine, Manitoba. She's the wellness representative and the Student Support Team representative of her class. She's also an inspiration for those looking to understand how to avoid burnout starting medical school, and those looking to introduce more wellness practices into their life more generally. Let's welcome Emma Anderson. Question: What does self care mean to you? Emma Anderson: I think that self care is something that's a little bit difficult to describe, in some ways, just because it does differ to so many people. And I think it's a very individualized concept. But personally, I think that self care is anything really that a person is doing to manage their health, whether that's their mental health, emotional health, physical health and spiritual health. And it's not really just, you know, one thing, there's no right or wrong way. It's just whatever that person feels that they need to do in order to manage their health, and feel well balanced. Question: What is the most important form of self care for medical students? There definitely have been improvements in the conversation surrounding mental health and the stigmatization of mental health in the field of medicine. Um, but with all of that being said, I think that there still is a lot of area for improvement. And that's something that I would really like physicians, who we're going to be working with, we're going to be supervising as students to know and appreciate that, yes, there's a lot of progress made. And yes, the conversation is moving in the correct direction. But there still is a lot of stigma that persists, and still a lot of work that needs to be done. And so I think with that, I would like them to know that you know, for a lot of medical learners, self care is still a challenge. And it's not something that necessarily comes very naturally to every person. And it's something that we're still in the process of learning. So just like in medical school, we're learning different skills like how to interpret a chest X ray or an EKG. And over time with more exposure, we're going to become very well equipped and natural at doing those things, which is the same thing with managing stress and managing our self care. Like we're still learning that we're still learning how to find that work life balance. And so that's something that we also have to be taught. So just like everything else that we're taught in medical school, we still would appreciate and need to be taught and guided in that journey of understanding or self care and how to manage wellness as medical learners. And I don't I don't think that there's necessarily one form of self care that would predominate over another because again, I think that self care is very individualized. And I think that self care needs are also dynamic and changing. It really depends on what sort of stressors you have going on in your life, what your current life circumstances are. So just as your mental health and your physical health are going to be changing over time, so are your bodies and your minds needs to accommodate those changes. But I think that a skill that's very important for medical students in particular, to learn and appreciate is the idea of self awareness and self reflection. From my understanding, I feel like all other forms of self care are really built upon a foundation of being in tune with yourself and having a firm grasp of what you're experiencing, and what you might need in order to find wellness and to find balance in your life. And so I think that, yeah, just having, having a good understanding of yourself and making time for self reflection is one of the most important things. Question: Is there a way for medical stuff and medical schools to better support medical students’ well being? There's a lot of ways that at a more institutional level, and an educational level, medical student wellness can be improved and supported. I think one major thing is just continuing to reduce stigma, continuing that journey of normalizing the conversation around mental health, and normalizing help seeking behavior among students. And I think that a really important part of that is having sort of like wellness role models for us. So having physicians or other medical students as well, who are comfortable speaking about their own experiences with their wellness, and comfortable speaking about their experiences and techniques for self care. And just having that open conversation to, you know, inspire young learners, make us feel more comfortable to have those conversations ourselves with other people. Question: Is there a lesson about self care that you hope to carry with you into the future? I've already learned one thing about mental health and wellness and self care early on in my medical education: it is dynamic. And sometimes you're going to have to adapt and change things up from your normal routine. And that's okay. So for me, that was quite the experience, I started my medical school education in the middle of a global pandemic. And that was interesting to say the least. And I, you know, before starting medical school, I always considered myself to be somebody who is very self aware, very well equipped with, you know, cognitive behavioral techniques that I've learned previously through psychology sessions. And I thought that I was very well prepared to handle the stress of medical school. But I wasn't prepared to handle the stress of medical school, in a pandemic, and experienced that isolation and disconnection from my classmates. And so, I learned really quickly that my mental health was taking a toll as a result and that my normal self care mechanisms weren't going to be cutting in anymore. I learned really fast that I needed to adapt, how I was going to be managing my mental health and wellness and try you know, try out some new self care techniques. And some of those things worked. Some of those I still do, some of them didn't work. And that's okay, so I think something that was very important I learned that I'm going to take with me moving forward is to try my best not to panic when my normal routine and my normal techniques don't necessarily pan out and work out anymore. And that when new challenges and new experiences come my way, just knowing that you know, going back to the basics of good self reflection and self awareness is a good place to start.

How to avoid burnout after medical school

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