Transcript:
April Jasper, OD, FAAO: So Dori, what would you define burnout to be? Or how do we even describe it? It's impossible to know if we are experiencing it if we don't know really what it is.
Dori Carlson, OD, MAL, FAAO: Are you feeling like you're pulling back? That you're not connecting with people? That you're feeling drained? That you're not sleeping well? Maybe that might be one of the symptoms. Those are the things that you're disconnecting from life and reality and enjoyment of life. That could be a symptom of burnout for sure.
AJ: I've heard people say, "I'm stressed out," but they don't know if stress and burnout are the same thing. So help them to recognize maybe the difference between the two. And I know that it's been said that April of 2020 was one of the most stressful months of many optometrists' careers. So what did that period reveal? When we talk about stress, burnout, even that time in life for all of us, what did it reveal about our profession and how we handle crisis? And did it provide any lessons that help us today in this topic of burnout?
DC: Well, I'm not a behavioral or mental health specialist, so I can't really speak to all of that. I can just say what my thoughts are from reading and things. I was really kind of proud of our profession in April of 2020. I know some people probably pulled back and just really let it overcome. But the resources that were out there, the availability of the American Optometric Association and other groups. We used to joke about the fact that every Thursday we got together with our other optometry friends and people and said, "Okay, what was the issue this week? How did we navigate this week?" We really leaned into our colleagues to kind of reset and realize that we weren't in this alone. And certainly optometry wasn't in this alone. It was every health care provider, right? I felt for my nursing friends and my physician friends. But I was really proud of our profession because I thought we really came together and helped each other out.
AJ: And we found that there were a lot of the older leadership lessons or leadership things we should have been practicing that really came true. I don't know about you, but I looked back at one of my favorite books that was written by Stephen Covey. What they basically talked about in that book, all of that actually was relevant, and it's what I went back to in 2020 during that time.
So I think about it, and again, going back to stress and burnout, the definitions for me can all roll together, but stress to me is something that can lead to burnout and that is something that we can be cognizant of, don't you think, so that we can help to prevent what we then call burnout.
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Continue Dr. Jasper and Dr. Carlson's conversation here.