Burnout Awareness: Know the Signs and How to Help

“With burnout being so pervasive in health care settings and posing safety risks for staff and patients, perioperative leaders need to be talking to their teams about burnout awareness,” advises Kim Robinson, SHRM-SCP, a career coach and HR executive in the nursing field.

Burnout Signs and Symptoms

Burnout goes deeper than feeling the stresses of a busy day or period of time, Robinson explains. “Stress is part of life, often it is transitory. Burnout is different, it’s a place someone usually needs support to come back from.”

There are a number of available resources to assess burnout in health care, such as these from the National Academy of Medicine. Overall, Robinson describes burnout as “feeling chronically unfulfilled” without the ability to feel you can make a difference.

Here are several other key signs and symptoms she suggests are a red flag for burnout:

1. Exhausted—this goes beyond just feeling tired on a Friday afternoon, it is constant mental and emotional exhaustion and an inability to recharge.
2. Disengaged and disconnected at work—what used to be exciting and attractive in your chosen profession is now mundane and there is a sense of hopelessness that nothing will get better.
3. Disconnected with people around you—feeling like an outsider and being unable to engage or reengage with people around you.
4. Cynical and a sense of hopelessness—constantly feeling negative about situations and people both at work and in personal life.
5. Short tempered— impatient and irritable.

Making the Call

Robinson acknowledges that identifying these signs as true symptoms of burnout isn’t always easy and initiating a conversation with a team member you suspect is dealing with burnout is even harder, but she suggests several important ways to start this dialogue:

• Take a compassionate approach: Coming to a nurse, physician or other member of your team from a place of compassion can open the door to conversation. Genuine concern is what can make a difference and allow someone to be receptive.
• Focus on observed behavior: Share specific examples where you noticed the person’s reaction to a situation being uncharacteristic. Try this:

I am concerned about you. I am noticing that you don’t seem excited like you used to be at the end of a successful surgery. 

• Be willing to hear pushback: A person trapped in burnout will not always be willing to talk about it. You may hear comments such as: I’m fine, I can suck it up, or don’t be ridiculous.
• Be prepared to circle back: A gentle persistence can help someone take the time to realize that what they are experiencing is burnout. By checking in and not giving up on a concern, nurse leaders can help their team member to feel comfortable talking or agreeing to reach out for support.

Supporting Recovery

Within a hospital, a strong employee-assistance program (EAP) will likely have excellent resources for burnout, Robinson suggests. She says nurse leaders should explore their facility’s EAP to help their teammates connect with counseling via phone or face to face, and potentially be referred to other resources that are 100% confidential.

Outside of a health care organization there are also career coaches who specialize in supporting health care providers with burnout. Many of these coaches are MDs and more information on this coaching can be found online at websites such as Happy MD.

There are even apps such as this one for military health care personnel that help the user track their own burnout scale.

Burnout is serious and has real consequences for anyone it touches, Robinson cautions. “The worst thing any of us can do is let burnout spiral out of control because this is hard to come back from.”

Related Reading:

• Building Personal Resilience
• Reconnect with Your Passion

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