EPISODE 9: Wellness and Burnout in Healthcare with Dr. Errin Weisman

Today’s guest is Errin Weisman DO! Listen in as she shares her no-nonsense approach to wellness, coaching and physician burnout! She has a refreshing outlook as well as very interesting insight into communication!

Today’s Guest

Errin Weisman DO

Errin Weisman, DO is a physician life coach, podcaster and fierce advocate for wellness in medicine. She faced professional burnout early in her clinical career and speaks openly about her story in order to help others know they are not alone.

Her work in the world is to tell her life transformation so no one feels alone and know change is possible because “if she can do it, so can I.”

She is passionate about creating sustainable careers for women in medicine and fundamentally changing the toxic culture of healthcare one woman at a time.

Dr. Weisman lives and practices life coaching and medicine in rural Southwestern Indiana, loves her roles as farmer’s wife, athlete and mother of three.

Website: truthrxs.com
Podcast: Doctor Me First
LinkedIn: Errin Weisman DO
Instagram: Truthrxs
https://www.goodreads.com/

Key Takeaways

• Dr. Weisman feels that the electronic medical record changed how we communicate in medicine.
• She feels that we have to get back to the humanistic communication connection.
• Dr. Weisman reiterates that we don’t even know what our colleagues look like anymore, let alone talk with them in the hallway.
• She reports a shocking statistic that 20-40% of female physicians have thought about suicide.
• Dr. Weisman urges all healthcare personell to stop ignoring how badly they feel and talk with someone.
• Her advice to healthcare workers is to use “I statements” which involve rewording a problem to make it less accusatory.

If I feel horrible going to work, if I wish that I was going to get hit by a truck, so that I don’t have to walk into the hospital, it is absolutely time for a change”

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Transcript

Andrew Tisser 0:10
Why do health care workers feel so badly? What is burnout? And how do we combat it? How do we return to the basic humanistic communication connection? Are the answers to these questions and many more on this episode of the Talk2MeDoc podcast.

[INTRO PLAYS]

Hey guys, welcome to this episode of the Talk2MeDoc podcast. If you’ve listened before, thank you so much. If this is your first time listening, please remember to subscribe because this episode, like with every episode, we’re bringing you the best guests from all around healthcare to discuss communication and how we can fix it.

This week’s episode brings Dr. Errin Weisman onto the show. Errin Weisman is a physician life coach podcaster and fierce advocate for wellness in medicine. she faced professional burnout early in her clinical career and speaks openly about her story in order to help others know they are not alone. Her work in the world is to tell her life transformation so no one feels alone and no change is possible because if she can do it, so can I.

She is passionate about creating sustainable careers for women in medicine, and fundamentally changing the toxic culture of healthcare. One woman at a time. Dr. Weisman lives and practices life coaching and medicine in rural Southwestern Indiana loves her roles as farmer’s wife, athlete and mother of three. Well, without any more waiting, let’s get Dr. Weisman onto the show!

Errin Weisman 2:03
Hey, thanks for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

Andrew Tisser 2:07
Absolutely, as am I already pre recorded a little bio about you. But if you could give the listeners a little background on who you are, what you do and your role in health care.

Errin Weisman 2:17
Yeah, so I’m Dr. Errin Weisman. I am a do tell the other deals out there. I’m a Kansas City do but I practice in southern Indiana. I’m Family Medicine boarded. But I’ve done a lot of really fun things after I realized in 2014 that I was utterly crispy with burnout. I was doing the traditional outpatient Family Medicine thing, had kept telling myself through residency training, it’s going to get better, it’s going to get better, and then got out and I was like, oh, holy ***, it’s not better.

I didn’t know what to do at the time. Like I literally was googling How do I change my CV to resume because I was done. I was just so done with medicine. And thank God I came across the resource called the entrepreneurial MD. I was like Imma do but that’s okay. I can check this out. And it was a program just doing that. Exactly. Trying to help you figure out, where’s your place in the world? Do you have an entrepreneurial spirit? If you do, how do you build this?

But the thing is, she started asking these questions like, Who are you without any labels? You know, you can’t say I’m a doctor, I’m a wife. I’m a mom, like, describe yourself in adjectives. And one of the other questions she asked me was, what thing if you lost it would be utterly devastating. And at the time, I said, my medical license, and I just like, Whoa, that just shook me up because I was like, whoa, wait, wait. Like there’s got to be more important things than this.

And so through doing that programmed, I realized I was like, I need to get on the phone with this woman. She was a family doc as well. She was out in California and started this thing called life coaching. I had no idea what it’s about, but I knew that it was helping me in some way. And with working with Dr. Philip Really, I really so many things about myself that I just let my identity slip and I took on this whole new pile of junk that wasn’t even mine. And so by going through the coaching relationship, I realized like, wow, where’s all the like young physician life coaches, like we needed this *** in med school.

So that’s exactly what I did. I went and got training, I became a coach and launched my business in 2015. While I was trying to figure out, you know, like, what’s my place in medicine, and that it kind of became a side hustle. It was like a hobby for a little while. And then it just started to blow up. I somehow got in front of the wave of all this position coaching, and now run my own physician coaching practice.

I also run an organization called the physician coaching Alliance, which is all about partnering physician colleagues together through the coaching relationship so that we can help one another because you’ve walked the walk, you talk the talk, it’s more important to have someone who truly under stands and can help you move forward and the path that is truly yours, rather than somebody trying to BS and just take your money.

So that’s kind of who I am. I’m also the host of the Dr. Me First podcast. It’s a podcast all for female physicians where we talk about life and practice and just go beyond the exam room and share stories to encourage and inspire each other because so many times we get stuck in our silos. And there are some amazing, amazing things happening in our world. And we just don’t know about it.

And so that’s what I do on my podcast, and then give a little bit of kick of inspiration and encouragement from the coaching aspect to really work on ourselves. Because we know that the burnout crisis is it’s not all in us, it’s not a personal thing. It’s about third of what we can impact, but the other two thirds of the culture in which we’re working in and the system that directly impacts us on a day to day basis. So I like to attack it from all of those quadrants. And like I said, I’ve also found my place in Medicine I’m still practicing, which is pretty amazing, to be honest.

Andrew Tisser 6:04
Yeah, it’s great. I mean, we hear a lot of physicians, I’ve said it before on this show the greatest exodus of 30 to 50 year old physicians in the history of time from the profession, but you see a lot of people leaving, you don’t see a lot of people still just redefining their position in medicine and continuing to practice. So that’s inspiring in and of itself.

Errin Weisman 6:24
Yeah. And I think because we get in, like all or none mindset, like we either got to be all in with this doctor stuff, or we’re all the hell out. And that’s not true. If you can really define like, what is it that you want in life? What do you want your life to look like? What do you want your doctoring to look like? And get really clear about that. Start setting boundaries, and then going and asking for that. You can absolutely get it. I mean, we’re in a doctor shortage right now. Why wouldn’t organizations work with you to adapt a practice that fits what you’re looking for?

I just think too many times. We’ve been programmed to just take what we can Get and like, be thankful for it. But instead it’s like, No, actually, you can modify this. You can ask for what you want and go after it. Is it easy? No. But you know what, we do hard things every single day. So why not do something that you really want to do? That’s hard. So for instance, for me, like I said, I was churning and burning, and I was a full FTP, and an outpatient clinic. And I just realized, like, I needed some space to breathe, because I felt like I was drowning.

So I went down to like a point six. So I had Tuesdays and Thursdays off and I tell people, it’s like, coming up from the bottom of the pool, those days where I could just like breathe and just start to clear my head and figure out like, what was it that I really wanted to do? And plus keep the lights on and like pay my loans and my children didn’t starve. I went that I realized that, okay, like outpatient medicine, it’s not fully my jam. I’m good at it. I can talk to patients, I can manage chronic illnesses.

I can do it in a rural area with limited resources. This isn’t really 100% what I wanted to do. So just learning to give myself permission to just try something else. So what I did at that point, I had a real nasty non compete that I had to get out of. So I changed specialties, I flipped over to emergency medicine and did that for about 15 months, I really grew as a clinician, oh my gosh, it was just an amazing experience to, you know, I had done some moonlighting as an in the ER as a resident, but when you’re out there, in a rural setting, doing it, I gained so much more confidence in myself that I could come from an outpatient setting and do emergency medicine, and do it in a way that was well defined.

And I had good colleagues around me to support me if I was like, hey, I want to take this big case. And, again, I was kind of reevaluating and realize like, Okay, this is not my forever job. I can take what I learned here and move myself forward. And that was the point when my coaching business is really taking off and I was like okay, you know, I’m going to step into this. This Something I’m helping people, specifically my peer colleagues. So I’m going to do this and jumped full time in the coaching. And what I realized about four months into is like I missed medicine, I almost needed to be fully removed from it to be like, oh, like, that is something special in a part of my life. S

o I started some telemedicine which I really enjoyed. And I also in my local community, they needed a physician in the local county jail, never thought I would go Orange is the New Black. But let me tell you, I really enjoyed that role. And just, it really opened up a new aspect of a marginalized population that I could really, really help. And, you know, it was one day a week, I went and did clinic in the facility one day a week and it really just like fulfilled me.

And so I would just encourage other people just instead of saying, Oh, I can’t, or that’ll never happen, start asking yourself, like, why not? Why couldn’t I do that and just opening that up to possibility Ladies, now the first thing that comes to you may not be that perfect fit. But by being open and just seeking what other opportunities, you can use your degree and thousands of different ways.

Andrew Tisser 10:12
Absolutely. I mean, the show really explores all the different roles in healthcare and I think everything you’ve been saying can be extrapolated to other people to a nursing degree is also marketable. You don’t have to be stuck in the trenches and and everyone else, physical therapist, I mean, everyone’s feeling the crunch of the current healthcare crisis. It’s not just us, although we are feeling pretty badly.

Errin Weisman 10:39
Yeah, it’s gonna take us looking at our roles differently. And saying, like, if this feels bad, if if I feel horrible going to work, if I wish that I was going to get hit by a truck, so that I don’t have to walk into the hospital. It is absolutely time for a change. And I just always want to inspire people to say like, change is possible. That thing, that idea, that crazy notion of maybe becoming a life coach, if if you have one of those ideas, like it’s not there on accident, there’s a purpose. And so like, I know through my podcast now I hear stories all the time of people changing and modifying.

And, you know, I get the question a lot like, do you ever regret going to medical school? Do you regret your past? And I can say when I was trying to like work my way through burnout in, in all the crap that came with it, yeah, I was pissed. I was pissed that I wasted the time and the money. But now retrospectively, there’s enough space that I can look back and see me becoming a physician helped launch me into the life that I’m living now. And I can honestly say the grass really is greener on the other side. When you get intentional and when you say, Okay, I am in control of this. And so what am I going to make it moving forward?

Andrew Tisser 11:58
That’s That’s a powerful message. Absolutely. Do you think that communication as a whole within the team and how we talk to each other contributes to the widespread burnout crisis?

Errin Weisman 12:09
Absolutely. I mean, I think it’s pretty obviously clear that electronic medical records changed how we communicated in medicine. And I mean, there’s more and more data coming out that, you know, it’s the number one leading factor on why so many people are burning out and are leaving or early retirement or transitioning. And so I think we really have to get back to that humanistic communication connection. I think about it. I just barely got in. When the doctors lounge was still like the old school doctors lounge where you would go in you would talk to colleagues, you would pick up your list in the morning on who you’re going to round on.

Andrew Tisser 12:49
Yeah, what’s the doctors lounge?

Errin Weisman 12:51
exactly and now, you go to the doctors lounge to like, hide or like us the secret bathroom and but it’s not. It’s Not a place of connection and community. And we missed that. I mean, how many people can honestly say that in a crowded room, they could pick out all the nephrologist or they could tell you who the hospitals were or who the ER Doc’s were, we don’t even know what each other looks like anymore. And we’ve lost that personal touch of bumping into somebody and being like, Oh hey, Dr. Such and such By the way, the patient is said to me, they’re doing so much better, like thanks.

We don’t have that anymore, because we’re all stuck behind these computer screens with smart sets and declaring our inboxes that I think that’s what so many people are missing the that connection, that communication of like actually talking to a person. So that’s one of my initiatives is really helping people get out in front of the computer screen. We know we have innovations to help physicians cut their time down on the amount of clicks and touches that they’re doing to the computer.

So I really push our organizations to get those instituted and stop making the computer the patient and get back to who the real doctor patient relationship is. And the same goes for like nursing staff like when we’re talking to our nurses and ma is, you know, the art of pre routing. It’s so important to sit down look through your list talk about Oh, Mrs. Such and such as coming in today. Remember last time, she had that thing on her foot that we almost missed, but you took her shoes off?

Good job with that, and hey, we need to check that again today. So I really think that we have to get intentional about having those kind of conversations. And then the other thing is to it’s like you have to say seven positives to negate one negative. Gosh, how many negatives Do we have floating around in our life? And are we really intentionally saying some positive things to our team to uplift them and help them because really, with teamwork, it does make the dream work and I think that’s where people People who are engaged and who are not as burned out or not burned out at all, is because they feel a sense of connection and teamwork. And they have job satisfaction that is far above the other places that other people are working at.

Andrew Tisser 15:14
Yeah, I mean, it’s funny. I started at my current Hospital in August. It’s a small rural hospital. For like, the first week I was there, I went up to the, you know, I’m an ER doc and I went up to the floor. And just to say, Hi, you know, because it’s a small place. Then I walked away and I went to talk to the ICU. And then I was coming down the hallway. And one of the nurses was talking to one of the other nurses and she was like, I don’t know, I don’t know why he was up here. And the other one was like, Well, did you offer him snacks? And the first nurse was like, No, I was just so shocked. I didn’t know what to do. Like, it just came upstairs to say hello. You know,

Errin Weisman 15:52
yeah, introduce yourself. Say hey, you know, I’m the new doc downstairs. If you need anything, please contact me. I mean, cuz That’s what we really want. We want people to call us and get ahold of us. And I know so many times we feel like, oh, we’re gonna bug somebody or, but really like, that’s the best thing we could do for patient care is direct contact and direct communication.

Andrew Tisser 16:15
Yeah, I mean, if the Tech has a good relationship with you, and can say, Hey, Doc, I don’t know if you notice this, but x, how many times did I not notice that right? Because she’s in there changing the patient or dietary is in there, bringing them some food, and they mentioned something, but if I’m unapproachable, or if the nurse colleagues are unapproachable, then we’re going to miss that. And that’s a shame.

The other thing, you know, you talk a lot about physician burnout, and how we can help get past some of that. But in regards to the rest of our colleagues, do you have any advice on how to help them with their current struggles? And maybe it’s not the same as a physician burnout crisis, but how do we help everyone else because healthcare, healthcare is broken?

Errin Weisman 16:57
It is it is and you know, it’s not just In healthcare, I mean, burnout is like a rampant disease right now. I think I saw a study and the Huffington Post was talking about like, where the most anxious generation. And so it’s not just isolated. Yeah. So I think that’s an important thing to remember that it’s not just me. And I am not alone in this. Because when any of us get to a point of isolation, that’s a really dangerous point to be in. I mean, right now, so I’m part of PMG physicians mom group, we did a study a little while back, asking about suicidal ideation among female physicians. And it’s pretty impressive.

It’s like, somewhere between 20 and 40% of female physicians have thought about suicide, maybe don’t have a plan or an intention. But that isolation factor when when you feel desperately alone, and that there is no hope. You are at highest risk for potentially ending your life and we know with physicians, we don’t get a second chance, even nurses We know how to do it. We know how to do it well in our lives. So I would just encourage anyone out there that that is feeling just totally overwhelmed and just crispy, that you are not alone in this.

There’s so many great people talking about this issue, that it’s up to you to reach out for help find someone, post a question anonymously, get ahold of your EAP program, get in those physician groups and find somebody that you connect with to talk about this. Because and that’s how I end my podcast is your life, your calling your pulse matters, and it really truly does. So I think the biggest thing is just to to recognize one you’re not alone. And to just have some awareness, have some awareness that you are in the middle of the suck. stop ignoring your feelings. stop ignoring your symptoms, stop ignoring how horrible you feel when you get up in the morning, and you’re almost dreading that you you still have breath in your lungs.

And I know that there’s a lot of people that because I hear it, I mean, that’s what I coach about, this is what I talk about. So I know people are out there. But having that that utter awareness like I am not in a good place right now. And then the next step for me is just to remind people, that it’s not going to stay this way. Change is absolutely possible. I mean, it’s like the one certainty is taxes and change and death. So just reminding yourself to that, okay, I know I’m not alone. I know I’m not in a good place. And I also know that I can change this. And the fourth thing is to ask who instead of asking, How do I change this?

No, no, my friend, this time to ask Who can I get help from? And so there like I said, there’s so many more resources coming out. Ama has a program called steps forward. There’s Nam, the National Academy of Medicine has a bunch of resources. acgme is trying to come out and have more and more of your training. I know that nursing organizations are really keying in on This as well. So there are resources available. And so just asking who, you know if it’s like finding a colleague like me and just get on the phone and figuring out what your next steps are, if it’s if it’s in a formal setting, just know that it’s not your solution that you have to solve by yourself.

It’s actually that big step of reaching out and saying, Hey, I’m hurting over here a little bit. Can you help me? Because I think too many times people are suffering in silence. We don’t even really know. Because we’ve all got our heads down, and we’re not looking around to be like, Oh, did you see Dr. Such and such they look a little disheveled today. And usually they’re on their A game. So I just really empower other physicians, providers, staff to say, if you’re not doing well, you know, you’ve got to speak up and advocate for yourself as well.

And the other thing too, is just you know, it’s okay. It’s okay to change. It’s okay to say, Oh, I was going to be this type of doctor for ever Amen. And I was going to work for this organization. But give yourself from some forgiveness. You didn’t know how it was going to turn out down the road. And so it’s okay to pivot and to make some changes. Absolutely.

Andrew Tisser 21:13
Just talk to your colleagues to write and then you don’t know if the Oh, hi dog agrees,

Errin Weisman 21:19
saying amen.

Andrew Tisser 21:20
Hey, stop it talk to your colleagues, right? I mean, the person sitting next to you may be going through the same thing.

Errin Weisman 21:29
Absolutely. Or they may have a resource like, Hey, I was feeling something similar to this, you need to go talk to or check out this through our organization, or have you looked at what the American Academy of Emergency Physicians is doing? Because they’re doing some great, you know, like, it’s important, but it’s that first big step of like, kind of cracking the surface and being like, Oh, I’m not invincible. That’s a hard first step.

Andrew Tisser 21:53
Well, shifting gears a little bit. I want to learn a little bit more about you as a person as a coach, and I know You’ve talked a lot so far about what you’ve been doing. So you seem to focus a bit on on physician moms, it seems

Errin Weisman 22:07
I do you know that that’s the role I play. I don’t exclusively just talk to physician moms, I talked to some X Y chromosomes as well, whenever they line up with me and but the cool thing is, like I said, with the physician coaching Alliance, there’s now a group of over 30 of us who are fellow physicians. And so it’s kind of a cool, like Midwestern smorgasbord, where you can go in there and find a coach that aligns with you, who’s also a doctor as well. So yeah, I I specifically focus on female physicians, transition, burnout. And honestly, sometimes it’s just about having a good conversation with people and I love doing that to you.

Andrew Tisser 22:48
Absolutely as to is, that’s why we got this show.

Errin Weisman 22:51
That’s why we podcast.

Andrew Tisser 22:54
Yeah, I mean, my wife and I worry about this a lie. I mean, we’re we’re getting close to starting a family and She’s a full time rheumatologist academic rheumatologist and she’s, you know, she works all day and works all night. And we worry about work life balance when it comes to once we start having kids, you know,

Errin Weisman 23:13
you know, that’s the one thing like to me marriage, it was gonna be like a checkbox check. And then it’s gonna be like kids check house check, pay off loans check. And what happened is when I became a mother, it just totally like shook everything up beyond what I realized to be perfectly honest. Because being like a high achieving alpha female, it was just another thing on my list that I wanted to get accomplished.

And so I think you guys already having the awareness to be like, Hey, this is probably going to shake things up. How’s it going to work is a really important first step. And then just also knowing like, you got to go on the no plan plan, because there’s no way of planning for what is going to change how it’s going to work out, all those sort of things, but it’s so much fun. I do it all over again. I hadn’t My first two kids in residency and so, you know, they say there’s never a good time and there really wasn’t. It really wasn’t a good time. But I would do it all over again with the realization of like, Hey, this is this is permanently going to alter your life plans. And that’s okay.

Andrew Tisser 24:16
Yeah, we’re excited. I mean, that’s, that’s great advice. So we’ll just kind of see where life takes us, I suppose. Well, I’d like to ask you for a book recommendation and maybe a favorite book of all time.

Errin Weisman 24:29
Oh, my gosh, so I’m a total book dragon. Like, I I use Goodreads. If you don’t use this, you should. And I always set a goal of like 100 books a year. Last year, I didn’t, didn’t quite get I gotten to the 90s. But that’s okay. So I read a lot. And honestly, I love fiction. I get enough nonfiction in my life every single day, that I feel like I want to escape and worlds.

So when I got this question for you before the podcast, I was thinking, you know, like, what, what some of my favorite books ever and I kind of tweaked the question to like, what were the books that like change who I was, or augmented, or like just shifted me. And so as a little kid, probably like fifth grader, I picked up the Alanna series by Tamora Pierce. It’s about a girl who pretends to be a boy and she becomes a knight. And I have to say, like, I think that set me on the path of badassery.

Like, I think realizing that, oh, girls can do like crazy great things like this too. So if you’ve got kids, it’s a good read for adults. I mean, you can get through it pretty quick. But check that series out. And another great, favorite book series that I read a couple years ago, so I love ya. So young adult fiction as well, is called the Throne of Glass by Sarah moss, ma s. Again, another badass heroine WHO DOES MAGIC and fights and she’s just amazing. So those would be my favorites like book series of all times that it would say like, just help help me.

The one nonfiction book that I can think of that like shifted my whole world and you can see a thread with this but it’s called You are a badass by Jensen zero. I remember sitting like I told you 2014 worst year of my life. I remember getting that book from the library and reading the first couple chapters and then sitting it down on my nightstand and being like, if I read any more of this, it’s going to change my life. And I like had to pause and I remember that moment being like, okay, like I’m all in let’s let’s finish this. But Jen is a life coach. She talks about her experience. She does all the the great exercises and how how she helps coach people to a life of greatness. And so that would be a fun book recommendation. If you like some colorful language, you’re right there with me and she should definitely use that book.

Andrew Tisser 26:55
Yeah, I read that one. That’s that’s a great book, honestly. Alright,

Errin Weisman 26:59
so So much of from a person who didn’t know anything about coaching, it was a great fundamental start into understanding like, Oh, I can change my life by just changing how I think about things. This is amazing. So yeah, I would, I’d highly recommend that it’s not to whoo, whoo, great stories and it good exercises. And like I said, She’s just a fun character to be around.

Andrew Tisser 27:26
Absolutely. All those recommendations will be in the show notes. For the listeners. What do you what do you like to do for fun?

Errin Weisman 27:33
I love getting my shoes dirty, to be perfectly honest. So I am a hiker, trail runner, kayak or whenever I can get out to nature that that’s what I love doing for fun. It was something that I did as a kid growing up in rural Indiana. I mean, I remember getting our first Gameboy and I was like in junior high and it was like, oh, amazing. But up until that point, it was like go outside, read books, imaginary friends. And somewhere along the way, I think it was probably med school. I just stopped going outside and stops hiking. I stopped, like having adventures.

And that was one thing that helps me to really recover from my burnout was to be like, what were the things that you used to do and why are you not doing them now? And so getting back outside again is been the one thing I love doing. I do fun Fridays. So having good boundaries is important to me. So I don’t work on Fridays now and me and a good friend, either you’ll find us on the trails. Maybe you’ll find us on a local river, but we are we’re doing some kind of outdoor adventures on fun Fridays.

Andrew Tisser 28:38
Yeah, what a cool idea. That is. I remember I mean, I didn’t really do too much outdoor stuff growing up in New York City, but definitely all the I used to read and have a very active imagination and I lost all that and residency which which is arguably the worst, worst time of my life. And getting back into reading and doing all that again. Really, really energized me Post residency. So,

Errin Weisman 29:03
to me, what I felt like was that like small spark was fizzling inside of me. And when I started, like getting back in touch with, like you said, like reading and some of those other activities, it’s like all of a sudden you had like this huge flame, and it was like, wow, wow, it’s back again.

Andrew Tisser 29:19
Yeah, and I agree with Goodreads. Someone told me about that, like two months ago, I was like, Oh, my God, that’s cool.

Errin Weisman 29:26
You will never get in a reading slump again. Because the cool thing with algorithm is super your audience is that you put in things that you’ve read, you write them, and then it pops out new recommendations. And then also you can find cool people like me and Andrew on there and see what we’ve read what we rate is five stars, and then you can go check it out, too.

Andrew Tisser 29:45
Yeah, it’s really cool. I really recommend it to everybody. So this next question is I’m going to modify it a little bit. I usually ask if the guest could give physicians or other providers piece of advice in the area of communication, but I’d like to broaden A little bit and if you could just give healthcare workers as a whole piece of advice in the area of communication, what would that be?

Errin Weisman 30:07
I think it would be when you’re thinking about like, you need to communicate, maybe it’s like you need to have a hard conversation or you need to tell a colleague or a patient something that’s maybe bad news that you first sit back and understand like, Okay, what is my intention to have this conversation get really clear about that? Because if you know why you’re having your conversation, you’re going to be much better about communicating the message. And then also, what I would recommend to is make sure you use I statements.

So instead of being like, you did this wrong, you have diabetes, you need to pick up your act here. Instead substitute and say, you know, I feel really disappointed when I see you on your phone instead of working on patient charts during the day or saying I feel really upset to tell you this, but I need to share with you that we’ve discovered that you have the diagnosis of diabetes, or like in other situations, but you can see how when you say I statements, you can really lean into how, what your knowledge is what your experiences and then it really defuses the situation how to communicate. So then that person knows how it’s impacting you.

And then also what you want to communicate with them. It’s like the best model I learned I statements and marriage counseling. And to this day, I try to share it with every single person that I know with this, but just remember in communication to, it’s not only us sending the signals out, you’ve got to have a receptive body to pick that up as well. And just know some people’s reactions to what you’re trying to tell them. That’s more about them than it is about you. And sometimes you just have to let the news land and let them absorb it in their own way.

Andrew Tisser 31:56
I statements just seems like such a easy Change, right, but with profound implications.

Errin Weisman 32:03
Yeah, they’re hard, though. I mean, it’s a lot easier to point the finger and say You, you, you, it’s just kind of ingrained in us. But when you actually have to accept part of the responsibility and say, I makes us all get a little crawly.

Andrew Tisser 32:17
Oh, absolutely. Well, I have really enjoyed this chat with you, Aaron. And I’m sure my audience will really have it as well. If they want to reach out or learn more about you. How can people find you?

Errin Weisman 32:31
Yeah, so if they’re listening to podcasts, they must be what podcast listeners. So come on over and find Dr. Me first hang out with me. I’d love to have them there. You can find me on I hang out on LinkedIn and Instagram. So Aaron Wiseman do on LinkedIn. And then on Instagram, I’m at truth prescription. So truth, our access. That’s the name of my business is truth prescriptions. And so I would love to just interact with anybody who’s out there and I just have to give you a huge thanks Andrew for having me on as a guest, I’m super excited to support another do podcaster and I just saw you hit a good milestone with your downloads. So proud of you and however I can support you to let me know.

Andrew Tisser 33:13
Thank you, Errin. I really appreciate it and thanks for all your wisdom and all the good work you’re doing with physicians. It’s really needed. So thank you again and we’ll talk soon.

Errin Weisman 33:23
Absolutely.

Andrew Tisser 33:26
What an amazing show with Dr. Errin Weisman. She really got you thinking about the important things in life and how to not stay in a career that is causing you physical, emotional, and spiritual harm. Dr. Weisman felt the electronic medical record changed how we communicate in medicine fundamentally. She also feels that we have to get back to the humanistic communication connection, which I really appreciate it Dr. Weisman reiterate say we don’t even Know what our colleagues look like anymore, let alone talk with them in the hallway. She reports a shocking statistic that 20 to 40% of female physicians have thought about suicide.

Dr. Weisman urges all healthcare personnel to stop ignoring how badly they feel and talk with someone. Her advice about I statements was very interesting. I statements involve rewarding a problem to make it less accusatory, hard to do, but very effective. Well talk to me, Doc, listeners. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the show. I hope you learned a lot. If you enjoyed, if you could take the time to go on Apple podcast and leave me a honest rating and review. That would be very helpful. The other thing I’d like you to do after listening is if you’re not already in it, join my closed Facebook group. Talk to me community that’s talking about To me, community. It’s an open forum where all healthcare workers and non healthcare personnel can share some of their trials tribulations, tips and tricks for communication and health care. Until next time,