EP32 – From Caregiver to Burnout Warrior: Jodie Green’s Mission to Rescue Healthcare Heroes

In every operating room, in every ward, in every clinic, and every team meeting, a silent battle brews. Conflict, negotiation, identity. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword podcast, where I, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst, Explore the hidden negotiations behind modern medicine. Let's trade burnout for boundaries and learn the art of healing with precision and power.

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Hello, my peaceful warriors. Welcome to the Scalpel and Sword podcast. I am your host, Dr. Lee Sharma, physician and conflict analyst, and I am thrilled to have on the podcast today Jodi Green. Jodi is the CEO, president, and founder of the Clinician Burnout Foundation, a US-based global public charity that she calls the first healthcare burnout first responder. She is an advisor, a board member, and an entrepreneur across health and non-health tech and AI verticals, as well as social impact entities. Jodie was one of only 30 digital strategists nationwide invited to the Obama White House for its Women's Digital Health Summit. As the CEO and founder of the Little Dragon Digital Consultancy, she has also brought her marketing and growth expertise to startups, scale-ups, and Fortune 500 companies. And I already feel like she's my friend just from the talking that we did before we started recording. So Jodi, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. I am really excited to be here. And as you just said, like instant chemistry. So like-minded people. This is great. Thank you for inviting me. I feel very honored.

Oh, I'm so happy you're here. When I started reading about the Clinician Burnout Foundation and the work that you're doing, I gotta admit, I got a little emotional because I felt like to have somebody actually call themselves, I'm going to be the first responder for the first responders. I'm going to care for the people doing clinical care. What inspired you to start the foundation?

It's actually very personal. I'm not a medical professional. As you read my bio, mostly marketing, but the thread has been healthcare. I have been a caregiver since the age of 17. I was still in high school. To my mother who recently passed away.

I'm sorry.

My worst star and a best friend. And she had severe anxiety and other things. And my brother is autistic now. He's older. So back then it was, that word wasn't used, mental retardation, warehouse him. And so from an early age and having to take care of them myself, and I loved them, it was great responsibility, pre-internet. So finding An occupational therapist, someone to teach him how to tie his shoelaces, a speech therapist, mental health, and so forth. And so the thread of my entire life has been an attitude of gratitude to find people who could help them have a quality of life and thrive. And I've been very fortunate to have just assembled amazing healthcare teams over the years. And I'm also just geeky. I've always loved this stuff, health and wellness. I've always read journals and Everything about healthcare, and that's also given me a greater appreciation too of the sheer volume of what's needed to be learned. But also, I mentioned this too when we're getting to know one another a few moments ago. It's an art and a craft. I mean, there's real beauty in trying to think through and craft what a plan could be. Some is literal with a dentist and cosmetic surgery and a plastician, but it's also it's a science. So you're very left-right brain, and there's also that IQ-EQ, right? The emotional intelligence that's often overlooked and also gets worn away with the compassion fatigue. So I really appreciated everything. And over time, I worked in many things. Recently, I got involved as an investor and I'm an advisor to a company called Protexa HealthTech. It's a NASA-Apple-like company. Combined algorithm for structured data and speed and ease of use to really transform the EHR experience. And one of the 3-legged stools, you know, increase your revenues to sustain and have structured data, accurate info, but also to end burnout because the ability to restore your hours. And that led me then to move off. And launched the Clinician Burnout Foundation at the end of 2020.

Wow. And the timing with this, because, you know, we already have probably upwards of 50% of physicians who are burned out going into the pandemic. And then those numbers just escalated significantly during the pandemic. And what has happened after, you would sort of wonder if those numbers would go back down and they haven't. And so being able to have this foundation And be able to provide support for all clinicians. And one of the things I loved on your website is that this is not just a doctor problem. This is a doctor problem. This is a nurse problem. This is a resident problem. This is a medical student problem. This is pervasive in medicine. And it's not even just people providing clinical care, right? It is the person cleaning the operating room all the way up.

And that's one of the things that if someone doesn't clean, the surgeon can't operate. The invisible people. And I think that's my background that showed me autism, mental health, like no one should be invisible, right?

Yes. When we don't recognize that it's a systemic problem, then we're never going to get any kind of actionable solution. Which one of the things I also loved on your website is your mantra, your guiding statement, action, not agonizing, solutions, not lip service. Because I think lip service is so common when it comes to burnout in healthcare. And execution, not the echo chamber. When we talk about action, not agonizing, what does that mean for you?

So what I wanted to do was, you know, and I've actually been looking at burnout and moral injury since 2000. I've read hundreds of studies and surveys, many more than a lot of clinicians I talk to, because of course you're overwhelmed and it's not taking away from anyone who's a researcher and is producing these things, but So, right. Yeah, those numbers were really bad, obviously, before COVID and COVID just ripped off the curtain because you couldn't— before it was hush-hush because we don't want a malpractice suit and the fears and repercussions, but couldn't hide it anymore. So for action, not agonize. What I mean by that is there's still millions being poured into studies, and I'm not taking away from them. And as my marketing background enables me to with partnering, I can help get the word out, get great response rates, and that's great, but we won't do that. My criteria is very clear. This has to be something tangible, something you can have frictionless, fast, free. Our business model is simply this: took something complex, simplified it to money in, take a percent to continue to have a foundation sustainable, money out.

Right.

And what I mean by that is we have all these partners with many wonderful products and services, and it's for the whole workforce, as you said, for cleaning the OR and so forth. We have Uber rides. If you've worked 87 hours in a single day, probably feels like it, then don't get behind the wheel. It's not safe for you, probably anybody else on the road, but you shouldn't be driving. We'll pay for that ride. We'll have food at your house. You want someone to clean your home or get your kids for childcare? And that's also accessible to a non-practitioner. That's great for the custodian or anyone else. And it's on and off the job. People just, I think, typically focus on the job. And of course you need that with moral injury. That's the culture and that's institutional within, but it also touches people who are independent practitioners and so forth. And then there are things specifically that are practice-specific. It can help aid in those things, whether it's tech and other kinds of tools and so forth. So what I meant by money in underwriting is grants, sponsor dollars, individual donations. It all helps. That money comes in. We have a signup list on the website, people who want help. They select what they want from our array of partners and offerings. And then we pay that for-profit company, or maybe it's a nonprofit There's a fee for their service. We pay them so they get their full revenue that they need and they can give it away for free to someone else. And so it's a really simple model that way because I didn't want to be doing studies. I wanted to give something to someone. If you need a ride home, we'll give it to you. If we can get a large organization and they want to work out a program, great. But there's no layers. There's no friction. If you signed up and said, I need a ride, okay. And so it's different, not just to be different, but because I have to remember to close the loop on the message as it is, because I feel like the other thing is I really dug deep. I'm like a researcher at heart. What I isolated was there's a lot of great, well-meaning programs and awareness raising and so forth. But even the best things that you hear about a successful pilot or whatever at this hospital or this organization. They don't scale or they simply fail because I've called it the quicksand effect. When you're offering something to someone who just needs food and sleep, at this point they're just down, they're barely holding on. They can't hear it. They can't take it in. That's human nature. You're so overwhelmed. So our specific purpose is to be restorative, to lift the bottom. Once you can feel like You're not gonna sink because we're lifting your head above it. Then you could start to hear, take in, and want this other help. And so what we're doing is it's a literal and figurative foundation, Clinician Burnout Foundation. We're literally building the metaphorical foundation. And now all the other programs that we're starting to work with others, then they have a stabilizing base. Now they're saying that itself won't go into the quicksand. And so that's the other thing. I saw a need that, you know, I'm not a clinician, but if one person doesn't commit suicide because of the work I've done, that's the greatest gift. If I could do that.

Oh my gosh, I'm gonna cry. One of the things that's so beautiful about what you just said, this idea of keeping people from sinking, and especially as you are reaching out to people in healthcare community with regards to burnout, exhaustion, is that people sometimes in healthcare are in these situations and may not realize that what they're experiencing is a problem. And I want to tell you why the very practical, actionable idea of providing Uber rides to sleep-deprived doctors and clinicians really spoke to me, because I have this very clear memory of 1993. I just started my internship at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. I had just finished a 24-hour OB call. And I was driving myself home. I was at a stoplight and I have a very clear memory of waking up because somebody was honking at me because I had fallen asleep at the stoplight and I didn't wake up until the person behind me had honked their horn. And I remember feeling very terrified. It's like, I didn't realize how sleep deprived I was until that happened. And then having had that experience, it just made me realize, I don't think I understand how exhausted I am. And so what your foundation is doing is not only are you providing that foundation, literally, as you said, but you're helping people understand you may have a need and don't realize it yet. And we want to help you meet that before you're in a place where you're so exhausted mentally, physically, emotionally, that you feel isolated and alone. That's actually something else really beautiful that the foundation does. Is that actually provides that kind of peer support and connection because burnout can really isolate us.

Oh, it's very isolating. And that's why I wanted to offer on and off the job things. And when I talk to people and even I contacted Uber and now I have others like Lyft Healthcare coming to me, it's exciting, is—

Oh, wow.

I'm just getting through the day, but this is a 24-hour thing. We want to help you off the job too. If we can even squeeze in an extra 30 minutes, an hour of sleep for you early on, and then just build on that. So I appreciate what you're saying about that too. And moral injury too, right? We know burnout is the burden from the system, but the moral injury is the conscience of the system that's lacking the culture. And so we also want to help people feel like we're there for them too. And we have various things that we're offering and an alliance, building an alliance with others like yourself and the work you do. To be able to really address everything.

I really wanna get into this because I think this is such a great point that you just made, the difference between burnout and moral injury. Because I think obviously burnout as a term has been around since the '70s. I mean, this is not a new concept. I think it's become, because of the foundation, because of the work that you're doing, I think people who are even not in healthcare are becoming more aware of what burnout is. But moral injury is more of a systemic issue. I love how you put that, that it's the conscience of the system. Do you think enough hospitals, are we still working on getting hospitals and healthcare systems aware of this concept of moral injury?

As with every aspect, right? There's a long way to go. And, you know, it's culture change. It's culture change that requires anyone who has a calling to serve. It could be in the military, law enforcement, also the highest rates of burnout. With suicidal ideation. It's not there yet, right? It's still profits over people, profits over patients, as they say. But the providers are not automatons, also patients. So we're not there yet, but pioneers and people like Wendy Dean, I'm sure you've heard of her and I've had the good fortune to meet her, read her works.

Oh, wow.

I mean, I don't necessarily think it's not just this or just that, right? It's not a bifurcated problem. There's no single problem. There's no single solution, but we have to Work from the inside out as you're a clinician, and for myself and others from the outside in, and and together we could go after all this. But we need to honor the character, courage, and commitment of the providers like yourself, and that's not there right now. You know, you don't even get to make treatment decisions; the insurance company does, right? You don't get to get less money because the government keeps slashing reimbursements and. The insurance companies change up the formulary and all that. Now we have maybe fewer callbacks for a doctor after hours, but probably 3 times the amount of time in the patient portal with the messages, which is not billable and no one gets paid for. So that's not just burnout, that's burnout, but it's also an insult as demeaning the conscience. Like, yeah, you could be a data entry clerk in the EHR. You could do some clerical stuff. And I'm not taking away from those who do those jobs that you're vital, but someone like you who's a practitioner, I'd rather have you heal than do that work. So I don't think they're separate. You're right. They're used interchangeably at times. I think they're very distinct. And I think moral injury is a huge crisis.

Absolutely. One of the things that you just mentioned, especially with your tech background, I really want to talk about this. The role that EHR, electronic health records, have played in contributing to burnout. One of the things that I read on the foundation website, because it really spoke to me, was this idea of EHR being primarily created for billing purposes and not so much for documentation purposes.

Definitely.

That's a huge contributor to the burnout that clinicians experience.

Because you have to think about when, I mean, some of them were out, but it was a glut in the Affordable Care Act and different things that had to hit different phased-in aspects. It was a glut. And really they weren't great. 80% error-filled. It was all unstructured data, meaning like a write-in field or whatever it was. We're crazy. And today some are getting to be more structured data and AI, but you know, and also whether you speak, whatever, you still have to review things. There's still time. There's still corrections, if you will. And it gets kicked back. Oh, that's the wrong code and blah, blah, blah. So yeah, they've doubled the work hours and it's a huge contributor to taking away from a life outside of work. And look, it was supposed to be the good intention gone awry, right? It was supposed to make things better, but paper charts were not that kind of burden. And frankly, often more accurate, not always, but now with AI, it's the single silver bullet, whatever. expression you want to use. I think it's going to continue to get better and better. Amazing things, what it can spot on an imaging versus, you know, an individual. But I still want that person looking it over in seconds.

Oh yeah.

You know, some amazing things, but no, it's not going to replace nurses. There are a lot of things it can't do and it's junk in, junk out. So if you have junk data going into its training, and right now it uses historical data, which is the unstructured error-filled data, then it's not there yet. There's the hallucinations that AI is famous for, but also it adds a real level of cost and complexity. Cost because you need different resources then, and you need trainers. And now you're asking to train overwhelmed, frustrated clinicians, nurses, whomever, how to use one more thing.

Yeah.

And so there's a lot that isn't quite there yet. And I remember one study the Mayo Clinic did, I guess it was, maybe it was 2020, so I have to look for a more recent one, but that stuck in my head because they were evaluating things. They grade F'd the HR. It was the most difficult thing actually under Excel. I mean, Excel was better. And I don't know, people like Excel spreadsheets, but most than Excel, and it cracked me up.

Yeah.

It in a horrible dark humor way. So yeah, still a ways to go.

And it's so interesting when you said in terms of AI and things like that, because I tried an AI scribe and one of the things about AI was that I did it for 3 days and the things that I knew were important to document in the chart, the AI did not think was important to document in the chart. So I'd finish and I spent more time going back and fixing the AI note because it didn't consider important what I knew was important. And it was so interesting to me. It's like, okay, this is definitely not going to shorten my day. This is gonna make my day worse. And so that was very quick for me to get rid of the AI. But it's so interesting to me because I think people are so hungry in clinical medicine for anything that's gonna help to relieve that burden that you will actually, you know, in the desert you'll drink the sand because you're literally looking for anything that's going to help to relieve that burden.

And you will get things. But, you know, when you launch something at first, again, when EHR is glutted, you know, really not the best thing. And certainly didn't start out with the patient portal. There was no, as you said, ease of documentation.

Right.

You didn't see your notes. You'd have to, just as you know, I don't have to tell you what you know, really. So it's getting better, but it's not there yet. And even, you know, the same thing with the companies, it's voice. It's still transcribed. And until it's trained to do what you need it to do, that's what I meant by the data that it's being fed with and also the people who design it, right? What is their architecture and framework if they're not putting it in there to be addressed? So that's why I'm saying it's gonna get there, but we're not there today.

Yeah, 100%. So as you're doing this work with the foundation, I think absolutely agree, and that's why we're sitting here. That burnout is a hugely prevalent problem and it affects the healthcare system in so many different ways. So it's not just about self-reporting. I think for clinicians with burnout, it's about people leaving medicine. It's about people feeling like their professional designation's being taken away, so they're losing that professional respect. It's about people who are going through medical school who, 40% of medical students internationally don't want patient-facing jobs when they graduate. So that's workforce concern. It's also about physician suicide, which I think a lot of people don't realize.

Absolutely. And that's what I referred to earlier and mentioned earlier when I said, if I can help one physician, whomever. And you know, this, for all the studies, and I say I don't do studies, I haven't seen anything that's up. People are still quoting the stat of 400 a year averaging, you know, one One or more a day. I think that number, as you said, post-COVID is a lot higher, though a lot of studies are saying, oh, it's lower.

Right.

But one suicide is one too many. So I don't even wanna quit. Well, I don't think it matters. 400 a year or 1,000 a year. Okay. That's scary. But you know what I'm saying? It's unconscionable. Yeah. It's untenable. And I don't wanna go back to leeches, and I don't think anybody else does. I want to help prevent that. I mean, the fact that in 2018, the National Observation Day of Physician Suicide Awareness Day, there shouldn't be a need for that day. It's absolutely abhorrent. Yeah. And one of the reasons I called the foundation Clinician is because all the studies, the early ones were just saying physician, absolutely. And not taking away from that in any way, but it was excluding those nurses and Nurse practitioners, everybody, phlebotomists, doesn't matter. Whoever is helping to provide medical care. And yeah, I think this, it's everybody, you know, everybody's affected. And it could be the culture is one. And there's also bullying. I'm not telling you something you don't know, where you'd hope that, you know, a resident, once they got there, they'd reach back and help others. They may be bullying others and they'll be bullied by others. And so. Which some of it is an internal cannibalization, if you will. And then there's also the dollars and cents people. And you've had podcasts recently, you had a podcast talking about the cost of the churn and replacing some. And I think for some people, you know, you need to put it in that metric. You need to explain it so that they understand X amount of burnout in your ER department is equal to X amount of dollars.

Yeah.

And so perhaps Fincher Burnout Foundation, we can offer something through people we work with. It doesn't have to be through us, but you're right. You always have to do that. You have to talk to people the way they'll understand it. So, and get it, not in a, not talking down to them. You just wanna help them to understand where you're coming from too.

This is why I love the fact that the Clinician Burnout Foundation and the work that you're doing even exists, because I do think you have organizations, you know, regional hospitals, large-scale academic medical centers. That clip that you were talking about when we had Joe on the podcast last week, and he was talking about the work he was doing at University of Pittsburgh, I had interns messaging me on social media saying, please take this to my hospital because they are seeing this play out in real time. And they understand how important it is to create this culture, just like you said, that if there's bullying going on in the culture, If there are things that are contributing to the already incredibly stressful situation of medical training and medical practice, and you have not recognized that you have to culture psychological safety. There has to be a space within this that recognizes, number one, burnout is real. Like you said, and I love how you put that, that it's not just a bifurcated problem. This is not just the hospital system doing things or the individual doing things. It's got to be a group effort. And having resources like the foundation, being able to do very practical small things like the Uber rides. That's why I love that so much. Those are things that you can actually point to say, we are doing small things to improve the quality of life of these very hardworking individuals. How can we blow this up? How can we make this so prevalent that we actually start to see not only our rates of burnout go down, But we actually start to see quality metrics for patient care go up because those are intimately connected.

Absolutely. And as with a patient, you're treating it as a 20 feet. We live on and off our jobs. And again, every practitioner is a patient too, not a robot. And so removing the stigma, addressing the moral injury, and yes, burnout is real. We don't want people to commit suicide, but the shortages obviously are. Incredible. And we're a global, we're US-based, but we're global. And, you know, it's really healthcare, just like we have the healthcare deserts here in rural America. I mean, they're vast in many countries as well.

Right.

And so, and it's getting worse, the shortages. And now we'll reimburse you less. Oh, and by the way, your nursing degree isn't a professional degree, so you can take out I don't drink, but I think it's a good time to start.

I think too, and you mentioned this earlier, and I think this is a really important point because we're going into 2026 with the budget cuts and the budget changes, that there's a quote that you have, short-term savings become long-term debts, but those debts are not just financial, they're also human.

Oh, very much. Yeah, human cost. And it's not simply, yes, the P&L statement, cost of churn. Yeah, it's lives lost. And you mentioned something too, psychological safety. The moral injury also comes along with physical safety. I mean, nursing has the horrible distinction of being called one of the most violent jobs, if not the most violent job in America. So of course, let's depreciate the value of their degree, but okay, different conversation.

Yeah.

We don't have the drinks on board for that yet. But it's not just nurses, but obviously they're really in harm's way, the frontline in the ER, wherever. And you might have a very agitated patient or a visitor who's a little enraged and the signs at the hospital door that says no guns or weapons beyond this point really isn't going to deter someone who's kind of like not in their right mind. And, you know, recently there was an article in the news about a security guard who tried to protect a doctor. He stepped between the doctor and the patient with a knife. He ended up getting killed. He put his life on the line. You shouldn't have to do that. And even jumping back, just because it reminded me of this, we talked about fatigue and that's safety too with driving.

Mm-hmm.

There's another story recently in the news where a nurse was so exhausted, she had parked at the top level of the hospital and she drove off the roof. Because she was so tired. She like closed to a moment that was it and she died. And so, safety, psychological, physical, emotional.

Yeah.

And financial too. To me, burnout is the 4-legged stool. It's mental, emotional, physical, and financial. Those legs of the chair, remove them and the chair will tip over. And we need to address all of it because it is a safety component. Do you not feel secure in that you could pay your bills or you'll be able to save enough to stay in the practice of medicine. Yeah, there's so much that has to be done.

Yeah. I think as you were talking about, especially all the stuff getting in the news, I think one of the things I've noticed as a clinician, and I definitely noticed it, there was a blip after the pandemic where we would see patients and they were still masked and things like that. And patients would, how are you? How are you doing? We're so appreciative of what you're doing. And I think that was For about six months to a year right after the pandemic, and then it leveled off. At least I didn't hear those things as much. But I think what's interesting that in the last nine months to a year has been an uptick in patients when they come to see me will actually ask, and I mean it's not every single day, but it's definitely once or twice more a week than I think I was hearing it. Where patients will actually ask me, "How are you?" And they're not; it's not a pleasantry. I mean, I'm in Alabama, so how you doing? I mean, how are you? That's a Like anyplace else, it's a, I'm fine. How are you? You know how that works. But it's an actual intentional question where they are wanting an actual intentional answer from me. How are you? And the first couple of times it happened, I was like, okay, that's interesting. And then as it's happened more and more, you start to realize this is because the question and existence of burnout. Has become so prevalent, just like the story of that poor nurse who drove her car off the parking deck. Patients in general are aware that people who work in medicine are suffering and they have a concern. And that concern, I think, genuinely is for the caregiver. I think the majority of patients really do care how their medical professionals, how their nurses, how everybody's doing. They care. But the fact that they're actually asking I think has shown that they do understand that impacts their ability to have access to and be the recipients of good care, to have healthy clinicians.

Absolutely. And one example that you had mentioned earlier, before we started recording, you were getting coffee with your daughter and the barista said, I know you, you have this podcast and Really out of the realm of healthcare and getting that recognition. I think you're right. I think a lot of people are educating themselves. It depends on where they live and so forth. And I'm not saying exclusives, but healthcare deserts, you know, now insurance subsidies going away, more people uninsured, they're concerned or health insurance plans have fewer and fewer in-network formularies keep getting dropped. And so desperately looking for good providers. And when they find someone, I'm the same way. I hope you're okay, 'cause I don't want you to go anywhere. They're all so amazing. I have such gratitude for everyone. But yeah, that's a wonderful thing that people are educating themselves. Hopefully that will continue to be, you know, another way as we raise public awareness, the voices, we come a louder chorus, all of us working together, and that can influence policy and that can bring about change that we need. It's not overnight. But it can and it will happen. It has to start somewhere.

Absolutely. And I do have patients who will sometimes ask those questions about like, if we are having to fight with a third-party payer to get something approved or get a procedure approved, which, you know, that's on the daily, that's so prevalent. But we do have patients who will now say, you're having to fight for this, you're having to fight for this. you know, thank you for fighting for this. And then my next statement to them will be, if you really want to do something about that, write your legislators, call your legislators.

Right.

And tell them that, you know, it's ridiculous that third-party payers, their PBMs, are making billions of dollars off of your premiums. And this is not something that should stand. And so the more we start to engage patients, I believe, in this policymaking process, I think there are so many advocacy groups that are nurse-based to And I do think in some places we are starting to move the needle, which is cool. But like you said, when that chorus gets louder, when everybody is singing that tune, you will start to see change. I do believe that. So I love the fact too that we're starting to see, and it's because of the work of the foundation, that we're starting to see patients who are buying into this and who are legitimately on this fight with us. I think that makes a huge difference. Yeah, I think that's really important.

You're giving the Clinician Broad Issue too much credit. Not a household name. Glad though to be growing and you're helping spread the awareness because all I want to do is get things to people to help them. But so many others that are doing such great work, like Stand Up for Doctors. Kim Downey is the founder and host of that podcast. And in fact, we now partner. She introduced me to you and that's what it is. It's a network. We're forming alliances. Because we all have different means of accomplishing things. We need to have shared expertise. We need to augment resources. There's no one problem. There's no one solution. It's going to take a diverse army of burnout warriors. And I love that you started this out with warriors. It's burnout warriors who won't quit. We are not going to quit. I mean, our lives depend on it. Everyone's life depends on it, including those who are creating the issues, because when they're sick or they have a loved one sick, Who are they going to go to?

Right?

Absolutely. Oh my gosh, you're so right about that. I mean, that's where we have the opportunity to get them to actually take that deep dive with us and look at what's flawed in the system. And then they become advocates too. That's what we really want. We don't want you to be adversaries. We want you to be advocates with us.

Right.

I want to take a second to talk about the warrior thing, because one of the things that you do that I love is you are a fencer.

Oh, that's right. I've always loved martial arts and not skilled, but Bruce Lee was so brilliant philosopher and fencing is kind of like ballet and it's a martial art and you get to invent aggressions, but it's a beautiful, powerful thing. And to me it's like chess. You have to think about, anticipate the move. And I'm left-handed and I'm really short. I'm like 5 feet. So I would think, what's my advantage? Okay, well, the opponent— most people are expecting moves from a right-handed person.

That's a plus.

Most people, if they're lunging to attack, I can get low really easily. That's a plus. So it's like anything else, and it's like how we're looking at how can we bring change to healthcare. Got to think about what are the opportunities. There are challenges, but they actually reveal opportunities. You just have to find them.

So since you mentioned Bruce Lee, because I'm a martial artist, so I've been studying martial arts for 20-plus years now.

Wow.

And I'm a big fan of Bruce Lee and his writings. And, you know, Bruce Lee based his martial art, Jeet Kune Do, the footwork on fencing footwork. And if you read his book, The Way of the Intercepting Fist, that's so much grounded in fencing. But one of the things you just talked about, because I'm gonna tie this into Jeet Kune Do because what makes Jeet Kune Do different and pretty much every other martial art that you do with the exception of some Chinese ones is that there's defense and offense, but they're 2 separate things. Right. But in Jeet Kune Do and fencing, it's all one thing. You are stop hitting. You are, you are being defensive and offensive at the same time.

Yeah.

And it's this idea that when we have horrible events happen in medicine, we have this opportunity to learn and grow from this, whether that's illuminating the presence of burnout, whether that's creating an opportunity to help somebody when they feel alone in that space. And I think you're seeing the growth of that with physician coaches, with peer coaching, with people who are devoting themselves to creating safe spaces within the practice of medicine, with the idea of reducing bullying, all of these things. These are all combinations of being defensive and offensive. We are protecting the people we love in the practice of medicine, but we are also creating opportunities for growth and healing. And I think one of the things I love about what you just said as a fencer is that you see that, but then you're taking that over into your work with clinician burnout.

Right. And it sounds like you do as well, if you've been studying martial arts. Oh, that's exciting. So if we have to walk down a scary place, will you come With me, of course. There you go. It's because I think it's of a piece too. It's like always seeing challenges and again, looking for voids, looking for opportunities. And just like I want to offer things on and off the job, we're not like different people in one space. We're applying our thinking to other things and leverage those things. And so I have no doubt what you're doing is informed by your martial arts. And that's so cool. We'll have a separate conversation about Bruce Lee. sleep. We don't need liquor for that.

Yes. Legit. Absolutely. So, Jodi, if people want to find the Clinician Burnout Foundation, if they want to become active, if they want to join, how would they do that?

They can go to the website. There's a way to sign up if you would like to get something that we could underwrite and help you with. And certainly there's the message form on the website. I'm also on LinkedIn, the Clinician Burnout Foundation LinkedIn page. Please go there, follow us. We have a monthly newsletter that's for more information if you'd like that. Obviously, we welcome contributions if someone wants to volunteer or write or just give me an idea. You know, I'd had this idea for Off the Job, things like Uber and so forth. And some of the earliest advisory board members were women physicians in their 40s and 50s, and they were the ones who Gave me an idea. I wish someone had been home cooking or picking up kids because I don't have children. That didn't occur to me. So you never know a great idea. And I just welcome input, energy, anything at all, you know, and I'd love to talk to people. I mean, I'm just about helping people. You know, I think it comes back in that again, no leeches. And we're all patients, you know, everybody counts.

Yeah, 100%. Well, we will link Clinician Burnout Foundation in the show notes. I also encourage you guys to check out Beyond Burnout, which is also infographics that show up. I looked at those infographics and I think as we're talking about burnout and getting this word out there, this is the kind of information that we need out. Jodi, I can't thank you enough for being here. I'm so thrilled to meet you. I'm so looking forward to us continuing our conversations, but thank you for being so generous with your time and your energy and being here today. It means a lot.

I can't thank you enough. I mean, my feelings, you know, I'm grateful for you doing the work that you do and we can help each other to help everyone else. Yes, it's wonderful. But our conversations continue. The fight continues. Yes, we could crush burnout.

Absolutely. Oh, I love that. For all of our peaceful warriors who joined us today on the Scalpel and Sword podcast, thank you for being here. And until next time, be at peace.

Every episode is an invitation. To speak, to negotiate, to choose. I'm Dr. Lee Sharma. Join the dialogue by subscribing to Scalpel and Sword. Until next time, peaceful warriors, may your choices be sharp and your voice be even sharper. This podcast is a reflection of lived experience and research in conflict resolution. The Scalpel and Sword is not intended as medical or legal guidance. For personal matters, please consult a qualified professional.