Roupen Odabashian: Healthcare is a crazy place to be in!

Roupen Odabashian, Hematology/Oncology Fellow at Karmanos Cancer Institute and Podcast Host at OncoDaily, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“You walk into the first room and celebrate 1 year cancer-free with your patient. You walk to the second room and tell a patient that the chemotherapy has failed them. You walk to the third room and then tell a patient they have a month to live. Then you go home and have dinner with your family! This is the life of many people who work in healthcare.

Healthcare is a crazy place to be in! We touch people in the most vulnerable times of their lives and celebrate with them; we cry with them and sometimes know about our patients more than their families do.

Sometimes we lose battles, and sometimes we win wars. But we never talk about it and never debrief. The reason there is so much burnout in healthcare is because people are overworked and they don’t have time to debrief and talk about their emotions. There is no such thing in healthcare.

You are expected to work and carry a smile on your face, no matter what. But what we forget is that we are human beings, and we all have emotional tanks, and after a long day, or a long week, or a long month being surrounded by sick people, you need to refill your emotional tank.

The only way to do that is to be with your family and friends, away from work. AI or technology will not solve burnout in healthcare. More time off and teaching people how to debrief and deal with emotions will.”

Source: Roupen Odabashian/LinkedIn