Burn outs

I picked physiotherapy as my career because it was meaningful, professional, stimulating, and it provides a relatively stable income for myself and my future family, these were the reasons for me to work hard. However, these weren’t the reasons for me to work TOO hard, to a point where I got frequent and never ending burnouts, where I had sleepless nights and guilt for resting.

The reasons for me to work too hard, upon reflection, come down to, perhaps, my need to prove my existence as an employee, or even, just as a human being.

My existence as an employee

To start off with, I’m grateful for every person who has ever contributed to the social media and tech industry, who put together with this amazing platform for every ordinary people to share and express their thoughts. I don’t think the world talks enough about the structural flaws of most business models in the healthcare industries, please allow me to use my physiotherapy profession as an example, as I am in no place to comment on other healthcare industries.

There is a linear income relationship for most clinics, which means one billable hour worth of work can only generate one hour worth of income. (For those who are unfamiliar with the industry, billable work mostly includes client facing, phone calls and meetings with the insurance companies, and certain types of report writings. What’s not billable, or perhaps not being seen as “productivity”, are the most amount of report writings, GP letters, referral letters, and treatment notes etc.)

This fee-for-service model rewards volume, not value. My value as an employee is reflected by solely how much business I generate for the company, which, for most of the time, means how many clients I see. The problem is that I end up stuck in a cycle of guilt when my schedule isn’t full, and burnout when it is. I try to see through a ‘business lens’ – income equals value. None of this was a healthy reflection of how much I worth as a physiotherapist, or an employee. Instead of stepping back, I kept blaming myself for not being ‘productive enough”.

My existence as a human being

I genuinely love my patients, they teach me something new everyday. When they get better, I’m proud. When they don’t? I spiral into guilt, self criticism, and the belief that I’m the absolute worst.

What’s deeper than that, is that I felt “seen” when patients benefited from my treatments, growing up from an Asian household where worth is correlated to success and achievements, I learn to equate success with outside validation. To a point that there’s almost a voice in my head rationalising that ‘if I’m not wanted at this place, at least I’ll be needed.”

Let’s be honest, patients who come through the door don’t need ME, they need the right professional help, whether that’s physiotherapy, mental health support, surgeries, or specialist referrals, they get better if they get the right support. My role is to offer the best care that my knowledge allows. The rest is not a verdict of my skill, my value, or who I am as a person.

This whole time I thought that I was climbing a ladder, each step closer to where I imagined I would feel worthwhile, while really what I did was running in a hamster wheel, an endlessly chasing for an empty goal.

My reflection stops at where my awareness is, and I don’t know what comes after. For the time being, I’m going to pause and take some deep breaths, as my favourite philosopher Frank Ostaseski once said: “Life can only be lived in the present, not in the past or in the future. And this present moment is the only place

where

can

REST.”

God bless you all.