Errin Weisman: Hey there, fellow fierce female physicians. How are you doing today? I'm so glad you're here to join me on Doctor Me First, the podcast all about authentic conversations between us, female physicians to bring encouragement, community, hope, and fun to your life and your practice. As always, I'm Dr. Errin Weisman, your colleague in medicine and coach in life, and this is episode number eight.

Errin Weisman: Today's episode is gonna be a little bit special. No guest, just all of me, baby. You get what you pay for. So, what I wanna talk with you about is a recent experience that I had. I was being introduced and the fellow colleague was talking about how they had experienced burnout at least twice in their career so far, and that person said, "Dr. Weisman is a life coach," kinda snickered, "for physicians and burnout, but she's so young. So, wait until you've been through it a few times, Dr. Weisman."

Errin Weisman: Then, I had another experience a couple days later where, as part of my work on doing my coaching business, I reached out to a physician coach to share about the struggles that I was going through and to see if I could get some help from it. And they responded to me that four years of medical practice is just not enough time for other doctors to respect me as both a colleague and a coach and said, I quote, "You have to put in your time, earn your stripes."

Errin Weisman: Ugh! I absolutely totally disagree with both of these situations. I do not think we need to burnout multiple times or stick out a job that we're miserable for just to earn the respect of other doctors. How 'bout, guys, instead of putting younger doctors down, we say, "Hey, kid, don't go the way I went. Let's create something better." Right? Come on, people. Let's get healthcare a little bit healthier.

Errin Weisman: I mean, you all can relate. We went through med school. I know I was a grade A resident, smart, driven, ambitious, showed up early, stayed late. Now, I realize I want a life outside of medicine. If earning my stripes means missing my kids' childhood, not connecting with my spouse, barely being married, being completely burned out and miserable for the next 30 years of my life, you can forget it. I will pack it up, I will go work as a checkout girl at K-Mart, because I just look back at it now and think, "No, no." The quote from A League of our Own that says, "It's the hard that makes it great," I think this is the premise of medical training.

Errin Weisman: But here's the thing, it would be fine if the hard was just a short stretch of time. Like for instance, when I was in med school and I was on a hard rotation, but I knew it was just a few weeks and then it would be over and I would move on to something else and there'd be some breathing room the next one down. But when is the hard ever over in our job? When we're on vacation? No, because we come back to it. When we retire? When we become an administrator or go non-clinical? When we quit?

Errin Weisman: Well, let me tell you about a recent study that showed that if doctors are doing a passion project just 20% of their work time, it was enough to negate burnout. This passion project might involve a certain procedure that they do all day or maybe working with a certain disease state or maybe a certain patient population, but just 20% of the time of their job doing what they love made the other 80% tolerable. I think this is a great new way to create careers for physicians so they're not miserable. You know what? The change really does start within in and it starts with us.

Errin Weisman: It starts with us getting clear on what we want and then going and ask for it. Or stopping doing what we absolutely don't want. The other thing is, too, I know I was an employed physician and you go and ask your employer for something and they don't get it to us. I think it's time that we find another way.

Errin Weisman: So, here's why I became a coach. Because I wanna empower you, my fellow doctor moms, to create a sustainable work-life balance, because it obviously can be done. But if we don't ask, if we don't start demanding that medicine enable us to be doctors and parents and women, then it's our fault if something changes. So, I hope you're with me on this rallying cry. Thanks for hanging out with me on today's podcast as it's been only me.

Errin Weisman: I wanna hear from you. I wanna hear examples of where you don't wanna earn your stripes in medicine, where you wanna change it now. So, I'll drop a link in the show notes and we can talk a little bit more on social media. Hey, thanks again, guys, and remember, your life, your calling, your pulse absolutely matters. Can't wait to talk to you soon. Bye.