A Doctor's Guide to Overcoming Burnout

If you or a colleague have ever suffered from burnout in medicine, watch this or listen to this episode. Hi, this is Matt with the Practice Profit System, and today we're going to dive into the topic of burnout, specifically physician burnout. Now, If you're in medicine, you know that this is not something that is new. Well, new over the last couple of years. But the reality is, is that we're seeing a dramatic increase in the number of doctors reporting significant burnout with being a physician. And worse, many are starting to leave the industry or continue to leave the industry. And there's a couple of reasons as to why this is going on. And what I want to do is I want to dive into the topic of burnout, but more importantly, How to deal with it, and how to give yourself some hope once again. All right, so let's take a look at some of the data because again, we want to look at data because data is really where it's all it is. And here's what the stats are telling us today. So what we know is that doctors have experienced a dramatic increase, a twofold increase in reported levels of burnout since 2020. Okay, so in 2020. The physicians reporting symptoms of burnout was 38%. Today, those numbers are in excess of 63%. So 63% of physicians are reporting symptoms of burnout. Now, what is causing this? Well, traditionally, what causes the issue with burnout across all— doesn't matter if you're a physician or doesn't matter, you could be a lawyer for all we care, right? But what happens is that When you start to experience burnout, what happens is you're dealing with emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and you have a feeling of decreased personal achievement. Okay? So let's kind of break each one of these down and let's just kind of examine this first part. We're gonna talk about how we're gonna examine what's causing this, and we all know what's causing it, but we're gonna dig deep into that. And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna spend the large part of our time as to how to get rid of it, how to get over the burnout. And how to feel joy about being in medicine again, because quite frankly, you know, treating people and helping people feel better should be one of the greatest callings out there, and you should have great satisfaction over doing it. The reality is, is the reasons why you're experiencing burnout is because of the industry. So let's just take a look at this. Here's what we do know is that doctors traditionally work the hardest, longest hours. I'm always amazed that when I talk with my clients about the number of hours that you all worked in residency. Well, it's actually a very depersonalizing and dehumanizing process. Now, I'm not trying to make you feel like you're a victim or anything like that. I'm just, I'm just being real honest, right? Like, let's just face facts. The whole process of becoming a doctor is designed to just teach you everything that's going to contribute to your burnout, right? So what you're— what happens is that you learn to work long hours, to put your personal desires on the back burner. You put everything in your life on hold. You put your life on hold of falling in love or starting a family or buying a house or all of these things while the rest of your friends are out there enjoying life and doing all of these things. You're working 100, 120 hours a week because you have this incredible calling to serve mankind by being a doctor, right? But there's a twist. The system doesn't allow you to do What you want to do, and that is spend time with your patients, find out what the root cause is, and help them feel better. I mean, the system doesn't allow you to do it. The system is designed specifically to dehumanize you. And the reason why that system is designed to do that is because of insurance-based care. Okay, now let's take a look at a traditional— let's say, you know, pediatricians. They have one of the largest burnout rates. Well, pediatricians, and I have a couple clients that are recovering pediatricians, you know, they make like $29 an office visit. There's a reason why they only get to spend 5 or 6 minutes with the patient. Now, this is all kind of standard information. I have clients of mine that are OB-GYNs that get paid $500 for a vaginal delivery. You've been completely dehumanized. You've been told at every step of the way that you're not worth it. Your skills aren't worth it. Your intelligence isn't worth it. Your sacrifices have not been worth it. I mean, could you imagine a lawyer making these kind of sacrifices and coming out and only charging $75 an hour? I mean, that's essentially what you're doing, right? You have way more training than a lawyer, and quite frankly, many of you are smarter than lawyers. The whole point of this is that the whole system is designed to burn you out. Now, I don't know if they're necessarily— I mean, it wouldn't make any sense that they would actually be doing it. To specifically burn you out. But there's the working within the system is not gonna give you the ability to no longer be burnt out or feel like you're no longer valued. So what do you have to do? So what's the cure with, for burnout? Let's talk about the cures for burnout. Well, there are traditional cures, right? I clearly would suggest that if you're feeling burnt out, don't be afraid to go out and get some therapy. Go talk to a therapist. I mean, It's not a weakness. Look, I've done therapy off and on for 25 years. It's probably one of the, been the best things, you know, to be able to, you know, talk about how I'm feeling and sort out how I'm feeling and sort out all these things. It's been very, very valuable. Now I just do podcasts, but that's another topic for another day. But the point, again, here's what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say is go, you know, there are a lot of things that are out there. If you're dealing with some mental health issues, clearly get some help. Okay? But there's other things that you can do as well to help prevent that. One is create time for yourself. Okay, now this is hard because, like, I'll take the example of one of my pain doctors in Scottsdale, Arizona. He gets into the office at 6:45 in the morning. He starts seeing patients at 7:15. He sees patients till 5 or 6 o'clock at night. He stays until about 7, kind of updating charts, goes home, has dinner, and then from 8 o'clock until about 10:30, 11 o'clock, he sits at the kitchen table Well, his wife is on the couch watching TV and finishes charting, right? So he has no time. I asked him, when was the last time you've worked out? He goes, I can't remember the last time I've worked out. And so what happens is that you're unable to get that reset, that recovery. Okay. But I'm going to talk to you about something that's even better. And that is get out of the system, get out of insurance-based care. Now I know there's a lot of questions that go with that. But let me tell you the story of Dr. Demers, and you can listen to her story. We have videos and we have recordings on it. She and I host the Business of Orthobiologics event a couple of times a year. There'll be information coming out on that. Here's her story. This is a woman who is a successful orthopedic surgeon, and she fellowed at Tauss. She's highly skilled. She's married to an OB-GYN. They're in a small Northern California town. Basically everything that you would think would be great, right? Except for after that she had her daughter, she did not want to go to work anymore. Not just like, I don't want to go to work. Like she would beg her husband, Dr. Matt, to please don't make me go to work today. Please don't make me go to work today. And what she did was in the middle of her shift, in the middle of a busy 30-patient, 35-patient day in her orthopedic surgery practice, She walked out. She went to lunch and she didn't come back. And what she did was— I'll make this long story very, very short— she made a deal where she just started working part-time. And the funny thing was, is her income really didn't go down at all. The hospital barely noticed. In fact, she even said nobody from the hospital even called to check on her. This was all just figured out with her staff. And she took that time to go for runs and to figure out what her next step was. And what she did— Was she started offering orthobiologics, things like PRP, adipose, BMAC, and started very, very small. She started with literally a one-room office where her waiting room was the reception area of the building. Okay? And what she did is she just started little by little building a business. Today, that business is a thriving cash practice. She still has a little bit of insurance patients that she sees. She likes to serve her community, so she still sees Medicare, Medicaid patients, I think, 1.5 to maybe 2 days, maybe I think it's 1.5 days a week because that's how she serves her community. So she makes enough in her cash practice, more than she's ever made before. And the beauty of it is that she can still contribute time to her community. And this is just one of many, many, many, many stories. So what is this fix for burnout? I would argue that your fix for the burnout is to create options. You need options. If you don't have options, if you don't feel like your future is going to be brighter than your past, this is when depression starts to kick in. When you think that all the good days are gone. Like, if you— you know, I used to have this elderly gentleman that I hung out with, and all he could do was talk about how better the past was, and he was always infinitely depressed. It was miserable to be around. Well, if your future If you don't feel like your future is brighter than your past, it's really hard to have energy and focus, and it's really, really hard to be excited about what the future holds. So there is a better future for you in medicine, and it doesn't have to be in insurance. You don't have to continue to play by their rules. You can have control over the money that you make. You can have control of your time again. You have control. You can have control over the types of patients that you see. You no longer have to abide by the rules of the industry that have been forced upon you. You don't have to do it. You don't have to be another statistic. You don't have to spend your life for the next 25 years working in a miserable environment of, of doing medicine the way that you don't want it to be done. You can have a choice. You can have a choice, just like you chose the specialty that you went into for being a physician. You can have a choice about your future. Your future doesn't have to be dictated to you by some suit at the hospital or some techno bureaucrat sitting in a cube somewhere in the insurance company. Patients are as fed up as you are with the insurance game. In fact, as a patient, I'll tell you, we're even more fed up because you want to know what's happening to us this year alone? This year alone, they have in many cases, and I'm talking, all my friends, a lot of my friends are business owners. We provide health insurance for our employees. We're seeing anywhere between an 83% to 118% increase in our insurance premiums that we pay for our employees. And you want to know what? They're reducing coverage. Not only are they jacking our rates by some cases 2x by doubling them, They're reducing the amount of coverage that we provide for our employees, and we're fed up. We're absolutely fed up. I'm in a group of nothing but founders and CEOs of people that own their own companies, and this is what's going on in the Slack channel right now. There's an entire Slack channel dedicated to it. So if you think you're frustrated, we're all looking for options because many families are now having to spend $10,000 to $15,000 out of pocket. Before anything kicks in, there's plenty of patients out there. There's plenty of families out there that are already paying out of pocket for sub-level care, and they want options. And so we see this time and time and time again. You no longer have to be part of the system. You can get out. So how do you do it? Well, the first thing is is that you have to make a decision. This is not something that you just go, well, wouldn't it be nice? Okay, this is something that you have to make a decision. You have to say to yourself, do I want to continue down this path for the next 20 years in medicine, or do I want to create a better option? Okay, now I'm not telling you that you have to leave immediately and that you have to blow everything up. That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is that you have choices and you have options. And if you are sick and tired of being treated like crap, then why stay there? That's like being in an abusive relationship. Okay, so if you're burnt out, if you're tired of this rat race that exists in the medical field, find a way out. Decide. Make a decision. First and foremost, set the goal. Second, make a decision. Make a commitment that you're going to get out. And getting out, by the way, can be cutting back and going part-time in the insurance space while you build something part-time. Now, the other question that comes up, and we'll talk more about this in future podcasts, the other topic that comes up all the time is how, how do I do this? Well, first thing I will tell you is that listen to our podcast, watch our videos, subscribe, get a copy of our book, The Anatomy of a 7-Figure Medical Practice. Okay. Do all of those things. There's tons. Of free resources that we provide to you. Okay? You can go through our podcast, you can go through our videos, you can read our book, you can go through our webinars, you can go through challenges that we do. Those are all readily available free from the comfort of your own home. The other thing I would tell you is, for example, let's say you want to go into the world of orthobiologics. Okay? Regenerative medicine. Twice a year, minimum 2 times a year, we host an event called the Business of Orthobiologics. We affectionately call it The Bob. Okay, now in the notes and on this and everything, you'll have a link that you can learn more about, about the next date that's coming up. We have convenient payment plans. We do it on a Saturday and Sunday, and it's 2 days where we talk about the science of medicine and the science of business. It's myself and Dr. Demers, and it's— we did our first event this last year and it was a home run, and we're gonna be doing more and more of it. Okay, get around other doctors that are doing this. Get around other doctors that have done this. Quit hanging around with doctors that say, well, that sounds really risky. I don't think you should do that. Get around other doctors that are doing this, have done this, and want to help you do it. And there's lots out there. There's people like Dr. Demers or Dr. Buford or Dr. Matthews and Dr. Duffy and Dr. Krolan and Dr. Gappin. There's doctors, there's tons in our group that have made this journey and want to help you. Okay? Because The challenge— here's the thing, I'll leave you with this— the challenge of leaving traditional medicine is more mental than it is anything else. And the reason why is because you've been told this lie. You've been told a lie that this is the way that medicine should be done, and if you go outside of it, you are a heretic. Well, the reality is, is that the history of medicine is always Always about pushing the envelope, finding new ways, finding new solutions, finding different ways to do things, because it's all about the care of the patient. And I can tell you this right now, your patients are going to be happier. You're going to be happier. Your family's going to be happier. Your spouse is going to be happier. And most importantly, you'll have passion about doing medicine again. Hope you liked this. If you did, give us a big thumbs up. Share this with other friends. Rate us. Give us five stars. Subscribe. Give us a thumbs up on the video. Whatever it is, and come back and listen more. This has been Matt Gallogly. This is the Practice Profit System podcast, and we look forward to talking to you soon. Have a great day, everybody.