Module 2

What is the Cost of Burnout

Instructor: Izumi Yamamoto
Burnout is a state of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion caused by excessive and
prolonged workplace stress. You feel depleted, emotionally drained, and unable to meet
constant demands when you are burned out.

The term “burnout” was first used to describe this state of being in helping professionals such as
doctors and nurses in the 70s, but nowadays the term is used for those who are in any kind of
profession. In 2019, WHO, the World Health Organization defines burnout as a “syndrome
conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully
managed”. It lists three main symptoms.

1. Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion

2. Increased mental distance from one’s job or feeling negative towards one’s career
3. Reduced professional productivity

So, here is a question for you.

● Have you experienced burnout before?

● Are you burned out at this time?
● If not, can you go on with the same intensity for the next 6 months without burning out?
● How about the next 3 years? 5 years? Or, 10 years?

My guess is there are few of you who can respond YES to the last question.

The cost of burnout is significant. It’s not just our individual wellbeing and sustainability, but
also, overall wellbeing and sustainability of the collective healthcare workers and its sector.

Let us look at the cost of burnout in some specific areas:

1. Quality of Life - this is about your quality of life

● Your physical health and wellbeing - you feel physically drained and exhausted,
unable to cope, tired and down, and don’t have enough energy.
● Your ability to have and nurture healthy relationships - you feel more irritable with
others, experience cynicism, and may experience emotional distancing.
Relationships with those you love and care for begin to suffer.
● Your capacity to experience pleasures and joy - start feeling numb, loss of
meaning
● Your capacity to connect - you experience a sense of isolation and separation
from the connections to others, to yourself. The connection you used to have
with your purpose may be lost. Connection with spirit might be a well of energy
for some and its connection gets weakened.

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Wellbeing for Health Care Professionals
University of Washington
 2. Work Effectiveness
● Lack of Engagement - You begin to disengage physically, mentally, emotionally
from work.
● Low Efficiency - Just because you are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it
doesn’t mean you are being effective and doing good work.
● Increase of Errors - The lack of overall wellbeing can lower your capacity to pay
attention and hold clarity of mind.
● Narrowing of Vision - Focus goes to setting off todays’ fire, rather than building a
better future. Our focus is narrow to a single situation or thing, and the ability to
hold wider awareness is not present.
● Lack of Creativity - It’s quite likely that your ability to think and act creatively has
become dormant and inactive

3. Sustainability
● Your Sustainability - there is a high number of burnout in the health care workers.
The recent pandemic has pushed many healthcare workers beyond their limits
and those who can leave the job, have left.
● Quality of Mentorship - experienced medical professionals who are burned out
are likely to be less inspired to mentor new generations
● Marathon vs Sprint - we need to find ways to work that sustain us for the long
haul, not for a brief period of time.

4. Modeling
● How are you participating in promoting work practices that lead toward
burnout?
● If you lead teams, projects, initiatives, or institutions, this is something you want to
ask yourself, what am I modeling to the next generation of healthcare
professionals?

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Wellbeing for Health Care Professionals
University of Washington