Building Resilience & Adaptability in Healthcare: Expert Tips from Dr Judy Wright | Overcome Burnout

Hey there, Dr. Judy Wright here. I am a wellness and performance strategist and I am also a physician. Today I wanted to talk about the importance of building resilience and adaptability and this is really important in what we're doing today in the world around us. Things are changing and they're ever changing and they're changing so quickly but there's so much happening. You know, I heard Gen Z is a generation that has encountered so much adversity, so much scary things in the environment, so much scary things going on. You know, even the idea of the increasing number of, you know, mass violence in the schools and violence outside of the schools, even in, you know, going to concerts and things of that nature. Seeing, you know, there's a commercial that says storm of the century used to come once a century but now it's coming all the time and it's so true. So even as Gen Z has been experiencing that their entire lifetime, really, so are, so is everyone else experiencing that now. That level of adversity that can come and feel like it's knocking you down and so even at work you can experience that on a regular basis and at home you can experience that on a regular basis and how you come back from that and how you deal with upcoming change is so important, period, but definitely important also when you're talking about working in health care, right? Health care is super dynamic. I mean, really, a lot of things are, but health care is super dynamic. Honestly, I think one of the things that I got annoyed about when I was looking at some of the hearings with Dr. Fauci, some of the questions I was annoyed with was the idea that, well, you know, this didn't happen and you said it was like this and and it made me want to scream because the thing about health care is health care is ever-changing. You make decisions based on the information you have at the time and you make decisions on how to do care, you know, guidelines change all the time in health care. It really does. Guidelines change all the time in health care and so, you know, this idea that you're supposed to just know what is and whatever you say, that's what we're going to hold you to forever and ever and ever and ever when the plain fact of the matter is that things change. If you've been to college, even high school, but if you've been to college, honestly, they will change one sentence or one paragraph in a textbook and now it's a whole different edition, right? So if one paragraph in a textbook can make it a whole different edition that has to be bought, good luck passing down those textbooks, right? If that's the case, imagine what happens within health care and you make the best decisions to give the best care you can based on the information that you have at the time. So being able in health care to be resilient with all the things that can come, the adversities that can come, the changes that can be made, you need to be more adaptable is very crucial in that ever-changing environment and so with health care changing, with the treatments, the policies, even the technology and the nature of the high stress involvement with frequent challenges on a regular basis, you can understand how resilience and adaptability would come into play and how being able to really embrace them both can make the job better for you, better for your colleagues, better for your patient care, make it actually less stressful, less risk of burning out and when you know how to get back up and keep doing what you need to be doing, when you know how to roll with the punches and be flexible, you can anticipate, act accordingly and your performance level goes up, your performance level goes up and the detriment goes down, right? So today we're going to talk about resilience and what it is, a little bit of the science, very little bit of the science behind it and some of the common myths about it and challenges to it but also why so necessary. We will also talk about adaptability, understanding adaptability and how and the benefits of adaptability but also how they complement each other and steps that you can start to take to really build upon your resilience and increase your adaptability for success. So, if you're here right now and you are listening on the podcast, welcome, subscribe and like and comment if you can and if you are watching us on YouTube, subscribe, like, comment, share and hit that notification bell so that you can know when we do our next episode. Also, if this is your first time here, welcome and if you've been here before, welcome back and I'd love to see your comments and what you think about it and please feel free to add on anything you think I've missed. So, let's get at it. So, resilience is really the ability to bounce back from adversity and I would say bounce back better. You have adversity, you have challenges, both of those things can cause stress, right? But your ability to manage your stress helps your ability to be more resilient and to grow from those challenges and that adversity. That's what resilience is, right? And some people are more resilient than others, right? We all have room to grow and be better in our resilience. Does resilience mean that you'll never be knocked down? Absolutely not. How would you know you're resilient if you never got knocked down, right? So, let's talk about the science behind resilience because in all actuality, the brain, you know, when you're younger, the brain has, that's when you form those neural connections and you're just popping, right? You're just popping because you are forming new neural connections and you're able to learn more and be more resilient and be more flexible and, you know, as we get older, as we get older, you're making less neural connections. But it doesn't mean you can't make neural connections and it sure doesn't mean you can't train your brain to form neural connections. And so, this is what they call neuroplasticity. That is like a whole big piece that, you know, could be a whole another episode, really. But you really can work on and train your brain to form more neural connections. The same way our bodies all respond to stress and they respond to stress in the same way. Now, we won't all respond the same way to the same stressors, but when your body encounters stress, your body will, you know, react to it in the same way. And so, you can also modulate and train your stress response systems when you learn how to manage your stress through stress reduction techniques. And all of that goes toward helping you build upon your resilience. So, it's really important when I talk about also, you know, giving yourself positive words, talking to yourself nicely, right? Talking to yourself with more positivity, less negativity, and that also is something that you can train yourself to do and it helps you to be more resilient. Because when we are in the throes of adversity, if we don't know how to manage that and reframe our thought processes, okay, it really makes it difficult to bounce back from that. So, you know, understanding how to think that through and speak positively over yourself, giving yourself grace, really important in your resilience journey. Absolutely. So, what are some common misconceptions about resilience? First common misconception that resilience means that you'll never feel stressed or overwhelmed. That is absolutely not the case. Like I said, obviously, to be resilient, you have to have something to be resilient from. That means you're going to feel stress. Stress is inevitable. You're going to feel stress. You may even get to a point of overwhelm. How do you bring yourself back from that and then how can you bounce back from that bigger and better? It also doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to bounce back quickly, okay? Different things have different bounce ability, I guess you can call it. Everything is not going to be a snap back, right? But all along, you could be working toward bouncing back. So, you may be bouncing back little by little and it may take little steps and little wins to get you there. The next misconception that I'm going to talk about and the last one I'm going to talk about is that it is an innate trait. You either have it or you don't. And that can't be further from the truth. You actually can train. We just talked about training your brain, training your to form new neural connections, and training your body on how to deal with stress in your mind, on how to deal with stressors. That absolutely can happen. Resilience is not an innate trait. Are some people more resilient than others? Yeah, yeah. But it's learned. And it may be learned because they learned it. They saw that how their parents did it. It may be learned through other types of adversity, but it's learned. And if they can learn it, so can you, right? Okay, so what are some of your challenges to resilience? Because as is anything else, it's challenges that you need to get to become resilient to grow in your resilience. But there are challenges to resilience. Absolutely. And especially I'm going to talk about the challenges to resilience in healthcare. So one, healthcare takes an emotional toll. When you're doing patient care and you're doing it every day, you're seeing a lot of stuff. There's certain parts of healthcare where you may see less, you may see less things that will cause like significant deep emotions, but patient care can take an emotional toll. Working long hours and the potential to get burned out also is a challenge to resilience in healthcare. You're tired. You're physically tired, mentally tired, emotionally tired. And it makes it difficult to be resilient. And then dealing with life and death situations on a regular basis. And this is part of that emotional toll. That's rough. That's rough. Dealing with those situations over and over again. And people have, some people that deal with that, they have come up with ways to deal with it, coping mechanisms. And I say, as long as these are positive coping mechanisms, because there's all types of coping mechanisms now. There are positive ones, but there are also negative ones. So when we're saying dealing with life and death situations regularly, having to face that on a regular basis, it can be super stressful. And then it's not even, it may not even give you time to kind of, all right, how am I going to deal with this adversity? Because it's so constant. And then lastly, balancing work demands and personal responsibilities also can be a challenge to resilience, especially if you have a lot of them. And we see this a lot with, especially, I think it's everybody, but especially women. Women who are taking that first shift of work, that second shift of being home and taking on so many responsibilities, they are at higher risk of burnout and feeling as if they're not properly balancing their life. And feeling as if they're not doing well or doing optimally at anything. Now that gets really rough when you start to feel that way. When you are in these fields, people that get in these fields are people who are used to moving and shaking things. And when it becomes so much that it becomes so difficult to balance those work demands and those life responsibilities because there's so much happening all at once, that's a challenge to resilience as well. But resilience is very necessary because resilience will help improve your mental health and your emotional health and your physical health and your overall well-being. It absolutely will. And when you really can start to master resilience, which is an ongoing thing, don't think, oh, I mastered it today and that's it. No, you always have to work on being resilient. When you master resilience, it improves your overall well-being entirely because it's helping you build back stronger and it's definitely improving performance. It's allowing performance to be sustainable and it's increasing your levels of success exponentially. Being more resilient, it enhances job satisfaction and career longevity. Also, it leads to better patient care outcomes, which is always an important thing. And it helps with coping with systemic pressures. When you are in the field, in the trenches, there could be a lot of bureaucracy and a lot of systemic pressures and a lot of red tape in health care. And resilience helps you to better deal with that so that you can do what you set out to do. So let's get into adaptability because they are not one the same. Where resilience talks more about how you come back from the challenges and adversity and grow from that, adaptability is the capacity to adjust effectively to changes, to changes in the circumstances, to changes in the environment. So how this benefits medical professionals is super important because it enhances problem solving skills in an ever-changing environment, in the ever-changing environment that is health care. And it reduces stress with change and uncertainty. Not everybody deals with change and uncertainty as easily as some other people. Some people, they embrace change. They thrive from change. And some people do not. But when you understand that change also is inevitable, that's the one thing that stays the same is that things will change. It's the one thing you can count on. And when you make peace with that, I didn't say it has to be comfortable, but you can make peace with it. And so when you make peace with that, it helps you better manage any stress around even thinking about change. It also improves job satisfaction and career longevity. And it facilitates continuous learning and professional growth, right? Being able to adjust to change in circumstances that are going to happen anyway. When you have, say, if you work with a company and the company is growing, when you understand how to be adaptable, you can grow right along with it, even in relationships. As relationships change, you can adapt with the relationship. And hopefully your relationship is adaptable enough that as you grow, your partner can grow and your relationship can grow and be better. So adaptability helps you in all aspects of life. How does it benefit the health care space in general, though? It leads to more personalized and effective patient care. Look, patient care, as it was when I started as a physician, is different than what patient care is now. Even as more technology has come in, you have to learn how to adapt to that change to still be able to build a proper rapport with your patients to effect positive change in patient care. It also enables a quicker adoption of those very technologies that I was talking about. When I was practicing back in, let's say, 2006, 2007, they were talking about bringing electronic medical records in. And there was going to be a time frame where everybody, not just the clinic I was working in, but all across the board, everybody was going to be expected, at least in my field of family medicine, to adopt the electronic medical records. It didn't mean everybody was going to have the same one, but they expected everybody to. And let me tell you something. I can't tell you how many physicians, usually older physicians, that said, once that starts, I am going to retire. And they were serious. And I didn't down them at all. I understand, you know, maybe they felt, I'm too old for this. I have been doing this a long time. I don't really want to learn, you know, all of this. But for the ones that knew that they were probably going to be in medicine for another 10, 20, 25 years, they were going to have to adapt because it was coming and they were going to have to learn it. So even learning new technologies, new ways of treatment, you know, before, you know, if you got an appendix removed, you knew your whole abdomen was going to get open to remove that appendix. Now it can be done with a couple of holes in the abdomen in certain places, remove it and then put, you know, two stitches each hole and you're done. Or you can do it even robotic, same two holes and now it's done robotically. So, you know, understanding and learning new treatments, new surgical techniques, new technologies, you know, you need to be adaptable to be able to do that. And also you need to be adaptable to understand how to collaborate within your space and collaborate outside of your space. I mean, now that we have telemedicine, patients can get seen by doctors who are not even in their state or in their country, right? And so that takes location collaboration, that takes interdisciplinary collaboration, super important. And finally, adaptability is important in a crisis. If we learn nothing in 2020 and 2021, it is that we can adapt to meet the change and the challenge of not being able to be in close quarters, a lot of us in any one space at any given time, being able to work in corporate and not necessarily be around each other, but still getting the job done. We had to learn how to meet those necessary changes and we did. So this is very important because I need to say this, being adaptable and being willing to change right as necessary does not mean loosening your boundaries to a point where you don't even recognize that, okay? It is important to still maintain boundaries and even when you're being adaptable, still maintain boundaries. It is super important because it is still part of you protecting your goals, protecting your values, you know, protecting your well-being. So don't think of adaptability as, oh, okay, well, I'm now, the ropes are off. I'm now going to have to, you know, loosen my boundaries. That's not necessarily the truth. Just recognize when it's necessary, absolutely necessary to adapt and maybe not throw out the boundaries. There may be one or two things you might have to adjust, but still have strong boundaries around versus when you need to stand firm. This is still about you making sure that your well-being is taken care of in order for you to reach your goals and perform at a sustainably high without sacrificing everything. It's important because there's going to be resistance to change. Some people I said embrace change, but they're not going to embrace every change and sometimes there's just straight resistance to change. So when you are seeing resistance to change, which is keeping away progress, here are things that you can do. You can reframe change rather as something that's bothersome, potentially problematic. Reframe change as an opportunity to grow, as an opportunity to see how something is, see what you're capable of, see if you like it. Change can seem so huge and a huge undertaking, but by breaking it down into smaller manageable steps, little by little, bit by bit, you can take those little steps to make huge change impact. And also learn about the change. Seek information and understanding and ask questions about the change because maybe transparency about the changes to come will help you better be able to embrace the change. Now, let's talk about the interplay between resilience and adaptability because remember, whereas resilience was really how you handled your bounce back from adversity and from challenges, adaptability was the capacity to adjust effectively to change in circumstances. These two things complement each other, right? So where resilience focuses on recovery and growth, adaptability emphasizes flexibility and change. It doesn't have to be adversity there at all, but you need flexibility to be able to deal with change. Resilience provides emotional strength to face those changes. Adaptability offers the practical skills to navigate those changes and together they are powerful in thriving in life and definitely in thriving in the ever-changing environment of healthcare. So it is important to build a resilient and adaptable mindset and the way to do that is cultivate a mindset of optimism and positive talk. Positive talk is so important, guys. I'm telling you, you know, there was a time when I didn't think so, but it's really important. It helps you reframe things. So cultivate that sense of being positive and letting go, being aware of negative thoughts and beliefs and really pushing that out with more positive thought and positive self-talk and then developing flexibility, cognitive flexibility, how you think things through and practicing that self-awareness and emotional regulation. So let's talk about action steps you can take right now. Five action steps you can take right now to build resistance and increase your adaptability. The first action you can take is to develop a growth mindset. So the growth mindset allows you to embrace challenges as learning opportunities, view failures as opportunities. These are stepping stones, right? You know, when you hear people say fail up, right? When you hear people say fail up, they don't look at their failures as reasons to stop. They're looking at their failures as things to learn from, tweak, you know, and do better in the next iteration. And also cultivate curiosity. One of my jobs, they always say stay curious. Cultivate curiosity and a love for learning, right? Because that's going to be big and keep you in a mindset of growth. Remember, change is inevitable. Just like stress is inevitable, change is also inevitable. It's going to happen. Are you going to grow with it or are you going to get left behind? The second action is to practice mindfulness and self-compassion. Why do I put those two things together? Because when you are practicing mindfulness, it is a period of really being present now, but also not judging yourself, not judging your thoughts, no judgment zone. And also it's a time to be compassionate with yourself and give yourself grace. So the best way to do this is to make sure you're doing some mindfulness exercises, deep breathing, you know, meditation, mindfulness exercises that you can do for a few minutes every day. And also use self-compassion techniques to combat self-criticism. So again, we're talking about that positive self-talk, positive self-thought. Also make sure that you are leaving me time in your schedule, daily, weekly, make sure you leave some me time. Stress management planning, okay? I believe in stress management planning. You need to do it, right? And that means you're going to put together a plan that helps you understand what it is you need for the different things, your different triggers, what techniques you can employ when those stresses are coming on, but even what techniques you employ regularly to keep some of the stress or the level of reaction to stress at bay. Manage it, reduce it, and also prevent burnout. Building support networks are really super key, right? It's rough out there and often in these spaces we're taught not to really talk about what we're going through. Building support networks is key. Don't be afraid to talk about what you're going through. Cultivate those relationships with colleagues, with mentors, with coaches. Get in a support group. It can be a support group at work, but if you don't feel comfortable with that, get into a support group outside of work. It can be on social media space, but it can actually be in person, right? So get into a support group if you find that necessary, and professional help if you need that too. There's no shame in that. Get a therapist. Get into a group therapy forum. That could be helpful for you. And the fifth step is to implement regular self-reflection so that you can adjust accordingly, right? This is what I call your optimization. Checking in with yourself, being aware of yourself, and checking in regularly. Yes, life gets busy, but sometimes you gotta stop. So checking in regularly. Are you gonna check in with yourself weekly, daily, weekly, monthly? Are you going to sit down and do a big check-in every quarter with yourself? Reflect and adjust accordingly so you can optimize on having coping strategies, being resilient, and also being adaptable, and optimize your performance, and optimize your success. Super important. I hope that your main takeaway here is that you're not necessarily born with resilience and adaptability. They're not fixed traits. They can be built. They can be increased. They can be optimized, and they absolutely are necessary to whatever work you do and to life in general. They are essential for thriving in an ever-changing world landscape and an ever-changing healthcare landscape. And so it is super important to work on, to do the work and the continuous work of building on your resilience and increasing your adaptability so that you can continue to perform at that high level to meet your goals and meet your definition of success while prioritizing your well-being and stressing much less. So I implore you to start enacting some of these techniques so that you can build upon your resilience and your adaptability. If you are still here with me, I thank you. I am Dr. Judy Wright, physician and wellness and performance strategist. Please like, comment, share, subscribe, hit that notification bell if you're watching on YouTube so that you don't miss out on the next episode. And I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye for now.