Difficult Conversations Podcast

Lessons I Learned as an ICU Physician

Episode 110 | September 22, 2020

Avoiding Burnout

Dr. Dike Drummond

Coach, Trainer, Consultant and CEO

Dike Drummund

Welcome to Difficult Conversations – Lessons I Learned as an ICU Physician with Dr. Anthony Orsini. Our special guest today is Dr. Dike Drummond, a Mayo trained family doctor, professional coach, author, speaker, and trainer, whose sole focus is addressing the modern epidemic in physicians and that is professional burnout. He is the Founder and CEO of TheHappyMD.com, which receives over 25,000 visits per month and hosts an online community of over 18,000 physicians from 63 countries around the world. He is the “go to” man and leading expert on physician burnout. His book, Stop Physician Burnout, has sold over 40,000 copies worldwide. Dr. Orsini keeps his promise about two things, that you will be inspired, and you will learn communication techniques that will help you in your professional and personal life.

Dr. Drummond tells us about the mission of his new Podcast called, “Physicians on Purpose.” He shares his story of how he experienced burnout after ten years of practicing medicine and why he made a major switch in his life. He launched TheHappyMD.com when the interest and prevalence of physician burnout peaked over time. Dr. Orsini asks “How do physicians who may feel symptoms of burnout have that first conversation with themselves and accept that they need help?” Dr. Drummond tells us it’s a conversation between your heart, your soul, your actual self, and the conditioned automaton that the medical education system spits out the far side. He explains the different personality traits that all physician have: workaholic, perfectionist, and lone ranger. What does this look like for the next generation of millennials? Dr. Drummond lets us know if the next generation of physicians are going to have less physician burnout or if it’s going to get worse.

The number one determinant of the patient’s experience is the doctor’s experience, so he explains what he teaches people on how to be awake in your workday. He reveals his simple single breath technique called the “SqueeGee Breath.” Dr. Orsini discusses his It’s All in the Delivery program that he developed and tells us the story about how he proved his hypothesis that patient experience scores can be improved by doing absolutely nothing but training the entire staff on how to communicate and to understand how human beings connect. If you are a physician or a nurse and have symptoms of burnout, find out how you can go from being afraid to tell anybody to asking for help. Reach out to Dr. Drummond. He shares some great advice he gives doctors and the keyword to think about is “satisfaction.” If you loved this episode, please hit the subscribe button to find out more about what we do and how we teach communication. Go ahead and download this episode now!

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