Begin Your Journey: Tackling Burnout

Hehemann gave a talk titled “Burnout/Impostor Syndrome” at the 2024 SMSNA Fall Scientific Meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona.

"In the moment, I think it's important to take a deep breath and try not to just be reactive," says Anne M. Suskind, MD, MS, FACS, FPMRS.

"The happier you are in your personal life, I think, the better you are as a doctor, and the better you are as a doctor, the better you can be in your personal life," says Anne M. Suskind, MD, MS, FACS, FPMRS.

"You could look at a person and say that they're extraordinarily successful...but they can be completely miserable," says Anne M. Suskind, MD, MS, FACS, FPMRS.

"It sounds so cheesy to just say it, but if you're really feeling grateful, you can't feel anything of a lower vibration or frequency at the same time," says Anne M. Suskind, MD, MS, FACS, FPMRS.

"The world has a way of sending you the same message until you get it, and burnout is the same way. It's going to keep coming at you until you acknowledge it," says Anne M. Suskind, MD, MS, FACS, FPMRS.

"I think that at any point, everyone is somewhere on that spectrum," says Anne M. Suskind, MD, MS, FACS, FPMRS.

"For the first 3 years that people join us, there's a whole program set up for them to help assimilate them into the culture, get them the resources that they need, make sure that they're meeting their benchmarks and goals," says Anne M. Suskind, MD, MS, FACS, FPMRS.

“I love helping people to connect with their passions and to find and create the lives that they wish to create, both within the field of medicine and urology,” says Anne M. Suskind, MD, MS, FACS, FPMRS.

"Just really try to have awareness; figure out, what do you really need right now? Once you realize what you need, have compassion, stop the judgment," says Diana Londoño, MD.

"Sometimes, when you just look at people in the eye, you sort of can forget about everything else; you can just focus on that person in front of you," says Diana Londoño, MD.

"You have to take care of those basic needs, because if not, you're not going to have the space to react differently when you're getting triggered," says Diana Londoño, MD.

“Our identity is not just about a title; it's not just about that role. We are much bigger than that,” says Diana Londoño, MD.

“It's really important to pay attention to what's off balance,” says Diana Londoño, MD.

“I didn't want to only get coached; I thought, "Well, if I become a coach, maybe I can share this with others,” says Diana Londoño, MD.

“Listen to your body; these are the signals telling you something is out of balance,” says Diana Londoño, MD.

“Burnout is the end stage of unmanaged stress in the workplace,” says Diana Londoño, MD.

"It's been pretty consistent that our second-year urology residents are really suffering," says Amanda C. North, MD.

“I couldn't change the fact that it was going to be a few months until I had help. But I could change my own response to the situation,” says Amanda C. North, MD.

"In 2021, we were finally able to demonstrate a statistically significant difference in burnout between men and women in urology with women having much higher burnout rates," says Amanda C. North, MD.