This is a really taxing question to which there are no easy answers. The Catch 22 surrounding burnout is that as one sinks down its’ slippery spiral, one ends up with less and less energy to do something about it.
So my first piece of advice would be to spot it early and do not ignore it. Learn more about burnout and how to spot the early signs.
But what to do if you are already somewhere in burnouts’ sticky clutches? Again – no easy answers as the solutions for one person will be very different to those for another.
But let me set the scene. Recently I’ve had some GPs come through the career programmes at Medical Forum who have the most ridiculous working weeks, yet they feel totally powerless to change anything. What that does is make them want to resign, and change career. Yet they are also too frazzled to make any inroads into any type of in depth career re-evaluation. Trying to instigate changes to how and where you work whilst also only just hanging on by your fingernails is a non starter.