Virtual meeting burnout, anyone?

In the past week, I engaged in 12 video conference meetings. . . and these were in addition to any virtual appointments I had with patients. Some were mandatory meetings, some were voluntary activities, and others replaced typical appointments that really should be happening in person. To say that I am sick and tired of virtual meetings and conferences would be a vast understatement. In fact, I think the most appropriate classification would be that this overabundance of virtual meetings and conferences is actually further eroding my mental and physical wellbeing during the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, the use of virtual meetings was relatively sparse, somewhat entertaining, and generally reserved for meetings or “gatherings” among people who were geographically separated. Imagine if there was a decision tree titled “Do You Need a Virtual Meeting?” sitting in front of you. The first question would be, “Are all the people invited to the meeting in the same place?” And when you answer “Yes” to this question, you follow the lone arrow on the outside of the tree matrix (which is intentionally long and bypasses all the other questions) to the answer that says: “NO. Don’t be anti-social. Have a REAL meeting.” Today, thanks to the pandemic, virtual meetings have exploded. I would even go so far as to say that we have MORE virtual meetings now than the number of in-person meetings we did in the past. Virtual meetings are so convenient that there is often no longer a reason to not have that meeting (too early in the morning, too late in the evening, not everyone can attend, it happens over lunch hour, it’s not really that essential. . . ). And so, we have more meetings. We even make meetings out of things that never needed to be meetings in the first place. And to be honest, I am afraid that once pandemic restrictions loosen, we won’t go back to our pre-pandemic meeting status-quo, or even the way of interacting with our friends and colleagues in the personable way we did before screen interactions took over our lives. I’m not sure if my 12 meetings this week is on par with most other medical professionals, and I will admit that some of the meetings I had were not regular weekly occurrences. They were, nonetheless, necessary and legitimate activities. (And don’t forget that the actual workdays are also variably filled with virtual patient appointments.) As a fellow in an academic medical setting, I start with a fairly high baseline level of mandatory virtual meetings: weekly journal clubs, weekly grand rounds, and weekly academic half-days (this week I had 2). My academic-related commitments accounted for one-third of the virtual meetings I attended this week. I would have had these commitments anyway, but by attending these meetings virtually, I missed out on sitting with my colleagues, mingling before and after the sessions, enjoying the provided coffee and food, and interacting in a more meaningful dialogue with the presenter or the other observers. I was also the presenter of the journal club topic this week and Instead of standing in front of a room of my friends and colleagues, getting non-verbal feedback, and making eye contact with them, I was wrestling with the stability of my internet connection, pushing my kids out of the periphery of the camera view, all while talking to a screen filled with little black boxes meant to represent people who were all probably grappling with the same challenges. On top of this solid base of mandatory academic meetings, I had four virtual personal meetings. Like the academic meetings, if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic, it would have been completely normal and expected that these meetings would have taken place in person. First was a governing board meeting for my kid’s school. What used to be an excuse for me to engage in my community while skirting dinner preparation responsibilities four to six times throughout the year actually turned into me standing in my kitchen, with my computer precariously placed somewhere among the dinner prep on the counter. One earbud was in my ear just listening for the times I needed to put in my vote, with the other ear tuned in to make sure my kids were not killing each other in the background. I also had my six-month fellowship evaluation with my program director. As if receiving feedback isn’t stressful enough, doing it over video conferencing certainly added that extra little… je ne sais quoi. This was followed by an employment interview, which arguably could have been suited for a virtual meeting since my interviewers were not in Montreal. However, the most ideal situation for a job interview would be for me to visit the place at which I am interviewing and meet the people in person. Finally, to round out the personal meetings category, I had a check-in with my financial advisors in anticipation of my quickly approaching change from fellowship to staff. Arguably, this was the least stressful and most enjoyable personal meeting of my week, but it doesn’t change the fact that I miss seeing people in real life and being there in person would have been so much better! Naturally, I do try to engage in activities that are interesting for me, that I choose for myself, and that ultimately fill my cup. This week there were four such happy virtual meetings scheduled that fell into this category. Sadly, though, because of the overwhelming demands of the eight other priority meetings I had, by the time I got to these meetings, I was already burned out and almost resentful of “needing” to attend them. Weeks ago, I was invited to participate in a Coaching in Health Care interactive beta group. As someone interested in and committed to changing the environment of medical education, I thought this would be an excellent course to take as I embark on my new life as a staff physician. This week there were two sessions of a four-session series. I am actually sad to admit (and kind of disappointed in myself) that I decided to bow out very early in the second session with a commitment to watch the recorded version later. Unfortunately, I just felt like I wasn’t where I needed to be, mentally and emotionally, to participate fully in the course. I was also invited as a panellist on the M-Talks webinar series hosted by The Medical Post. The topic was Parenting in Medicine and being invited as a panellist on this topic was a great compliment and also something in which I was genuinely excited to participate. And to be honest, this was probably the best virtual meeting of my week! Finally, my most anticipated meeting of the week was a long awaiting book club meeting with Dr. Jillian Horton, the author of a wonderful new book about burnout in medicine: We are all Perfectly Fine. Unfortunately, like my coaching in healthcare group, I was disappointed to be too burned out and exhausted from the virtual demands of my week to fully participate in and enjoy the discussion. Pre-pandemic, maybe only four of the 12 virtual meetings I had this week would have been scheduled. I would have likely attended all the other meetings in person and would have been more engaged, interested and social. And most importantly, the virtual meeting burnout wouldn’t have been so overwhelming, preventing me from truly enjoying the virtual event that were most interesting to me and most important to my personal wellbeing.

Virtual meeting burnout, anyone?

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