5 Burnout Busters We Use In Our Practice

The last few weeks of school, my audiologist partner and I noticed a lot of tired body language and droopy eyes in our clinic’s pediatric population. We were expecting everyone to feel super-charged and excited for summer break, and then we realized—the kids were overworked and simply burned out. Between school, extracurricular activities, homework and speech-language sessions, the kids were DONE. As clinicians, we recognize this in our patients, but we often find it difficult to recognize this extreme fatigue in ourselves. We, too, were experiencing an uptick in appointments, a push for all types of end-of-year evaluations and reports, and a greater need to come in early and stay late to get everything done. When we all finally looked in the mirror, some droopy eyes looked back. Psychologist Herbert Freudenberger coined the term “burnout” in the 1970s. He used the term to describe the consequences of severe stress and high ideals—specifically in the “helping” professions. Today, the word refers to the exhaustion, reduced performance and, often, feelings of alienation. And this can apply not only for those working in health care, but in overworked professionals of all types—as well as in homemakers, students and even celebrities. Other insights for battling burnout: When a speech-language pathologist saw signs of burnout among her faculty-clinician colleagues, she set out to make over her division. Flailing at work? Determine how your job can better draw ...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Tags: Audiology Speech-Language Pathology avoiding burnout Practice Management private practice Professional Development Source Type: blogs