From Burnout to Belonging

This declaration came from Amy without a hint of bravado or hesitation when asked about her current role. Her voice carried a weight of assuredness, a profound acknowledgment that motherhood isn't just a part of her life; it's the essence of her daily commitment. “Having a six and four-year-old and a husband who travels a lot for work creates the challenge for me to be emotionally present. I’m trying my best to create space for that.”

Ah yes, space. I have found it doesn’t exist unless we create it.

One of her current roles is ad hoc project-based work for early-stage startups in the health tech space, focusing on the clinical operational part of the business. “An early-stage startup who may not have much clinical experience or a clinician on staff but wants to implement a clinical workflow or an electronic medical record system.” 

Amy is also the creative force behind a newsletter, where she writes to "drive meaningful connection and empathy by highlighting the stories and experiences of healthcare professionals as well as patients, thereby giving them a space to have a voice”. She believes so many beautiful stories and intricacies in healthcare don’t suit the social media algorithm but must be spoken about.

Motivated by a profound desire to deepen the understanding of the patient experience, Amy seeks to inspire health professionals to "create more space to hear the patient’s plight because they read a story about a patient who's feeling really invalidated by the system".

In late 2023, Amy also launched the Humans in Healthcare (HIH) community - a venture that led us to cross paths. She described it as,

My initial encounter with her confirmed that I had discovered something truly special —a shared sense of purpose and the comforting realisation that my feelings and ambitions were understood.

Amy introduced me to the concept of a ‘creator life’, a term not typically associated with healthcare professionals. Yet, she compellingly argues that we are creators in crafting profiles, offerings, products, services, networks, or communities.

Through Humans in Healthcare (HIH), Amy is cultivating a sanctuary for health professionals seeking a “sense of belonging where we can talk about the unique challenges to our lives as clinicians. Whether that be navigating careers or just needing that peer support, encouragement, and empowerment”. Her aspiration to foster deeper relationships and community extends beyond her newsletter, embodying her conviction that we all deserve more of the support and connection that sustains us.

However, launching HIH involved overcoming many hurdles. Amy shared the internal struggles she experienced, both fear and determination. After six months of sitting on the idea, I’m grateful she convinced herself and let courage see it through.

The moment of fear arrived after Amy invited her newsletter subscribers to join the community and assigned a dollar value to it.

But it became her most unsubscribed one.

Listening and imagining that, I sat with an empathetic ping to my body. It's like bracing for impact. Yet, she held her resolve despite feeling vulnerable and hiding for a few days after launch.

This is a timely reminder as I write this and attempt to assert some value in what we’re doing in Career Cliniq. It’s almost like holding my breath while my mind races a million miles a second. But I know experiencing this temporary discomfort is essential to moving forward and taking action.

I prompted her to trace her journey back to the initial steps of her career in health. To my surprise, I discovered her initial direction was towards the Registered Dietitian (RD) program after completing a major in theatre. Despite a love for nutrition and lived experience with eating challenges, Amy was drawn toward the breadth that a Physician Assistant (PA) qualification could provide. 

A profession's potential scope and practice modality have a crucial influence on how we pick our beginning credentials in health. For those unfamiliar with this credential, a PA undergoes education and training under the medical model in less years but must work under the supervision of a Medical Doctor. A majority of PAs work in primary care in the USA. Amy likened it to perhaps the Nurse Practitioner(NP) credential that other countries and the USA have. The variations between the scope of practice of an NP and PA are due to different licensing requirements and rules across the various states of the US.

Her initial years as a PA were spent in clinically focused areas such as gastroenterology, where she was surprised at how little medically trained professionals know and talk about nutrition when it comes to the gut. She assured me she referred to the fantastic RD’s surrounding her. I let a little smile show, knowing full well what she meant, my pride in my profession, and the clinical speciality I focused on for most of my clinical years.

For the next seven years, Amy worked in various settings, hospitals, and private practice.

Amy says the revenue-generating model of the US healthcare system, which hinders the healer from helping, caused a degree of dissonance that contributed significantly to her burnout. During her return to work eight weeks postpartum, attempting to breastfeed still and feeling unsupported, the final thread that she was hanging on broke.

In that moment of sheer exhaustion, Amy distinctly remembers asking herself, “Can you see yourself doing the same thing in 10 years?”

Her answer was a clear ‘no’, but the follow-up question was just as important:

There’s no denying that everyone benefits when a health professional can find a sustainable path to continue serving our communities.

The remainder of Amy’s story shows that we have many ways to make an impact on those who need us. But when the healer is burned out, that becomes extremely difficult.

Then comes the pivot, but it was at a time when pivots weren’t as common or sought out as they are now, particularly post-pandemic.

 “No one was doing that at the time. I had zero friends who thought it made sense—like no one. A lot of my colleagues were just as disenchanted with the healthcare system. Still, no one was taking steps to really do anything about it. They were just as burned out”.

She went to talk with a good friend and shared her intentions to leave, as well as the uncertainty swirling around her. This person was also a pharmaceutical representative who knew a social worker in a local health insurance system. It was set up like a consultant group within this system, where their job was to help primary care practices through program development–covering things like chronic care management, population health and associated data management.

Amy got the role after an extensive interview process, during which her clinical background gave her an advantage over other applicants. Like many in healthcare, the pandemic brought change no one saw coming, resulting in the disbanding of the consulting arm of the company Amy was with. “It wasn't how I saw it ending, but also, I had just had my daughter, so I was getting set to return from maternity leave. I didn't have anywhere to go back to, so it was a wacky time of my life”. 

The workplace uncertainty and layoffs around her due to the pandemic caused Amy to seek a new role immediately. A startup in the clinical research space just happened to be near where she lived. She knew someone within the company who referred her to the recruitment process. The role was to oversee the clinical trials and training for the non-health professionals. However, like many startups, what starts as your role quickly evolves, which Amy indicates offered her opportunities to learn new skills and gain knowledge in non-health areas.

 Another big career transition was followed by another personal one, with a geographical relocation across the country. This eventually led her to leave her role as it became impossible to do it remotely.

Enter Amy, the community builder.

Her next role, found via LinkedIn, was with On Deck, which involved developing a community for the health tech community. This involved building different programs and resources for health tech founders, as many had no clinical backgrounds. Her reflection on what made her successful in getting this role and doing well in it was her clinical background, which “made me unique,” given the absence of other healthcare professionals.

The original job title caught Amy’s attention when scrolling. Still, it changed and became known as Program Associate for Health Tech Community. I was interested in her approach to this job search. She admits it was a role she had no network to leverage, “I wasn't searching for a straight-up healthcare role. I was looking for something in the tech space that would use the skills that I had in program development and operational skills. But what really stood out to me was building a community for innovators in the healthcare space. I thought that was really interesting”. 

Knowing that health tech is a popular space for health professionals to transition into, I wanted to understand where it fits Amy’s original vision for her career. Was it always an interest of hers since becoming a PA? “I never thought I would be doing the health tech side”. Amy paused further, contemplating the question.

I’m quick to admit to Amy that we all enter healthcare with a degree of naivety. In some ways, thank goodness; otherwise, workforce issues would be even worse than they are now. But without prompting, Amy proceeds to share her thoughts on her earlier burnout with the benefit of hindsight.

Hindsight…it can be a gentle teacher, provided we don't allow self-criticism to overshadow the quiet voice bringing insights our way.

“Had I known about burnout, I felt I would have better prepared myself to deal with some of the realities of working in the healthcare system, such as better boundaries and coping skills. But having kids is where my full emotional investment is, and I couldn't balance the two and not lose my sense of self. That's not to say that that can't change down the road. I still keep up with my credentials as a PA and am still board certified, and I hold on to that because you never know”.

Amy said these words with a degree of self-compassion that I imagine she’s worked hard to foster. For Amy, compassion was etched into how she described becoming burned out again whilst in the health tech community-building role. The program her role sat within ended up getting ‘sunset’, a business term for intentionally phasing out something.

Essentially, she lost her job.

But being laid off offered more reflective moments for Amy, 

Mindful of the energy required in the startup hustle culture, she became honest with herself, realising it didn’t align with her values or season of life.

Her experiences gave her wisdom and new connections. She now had a health tech network that she leveraged and reached out to for consulting project work. Determined to choose her pace and workload, Amy tapped into her skills and understanding of the different spaces she’d worked in and continued to offer her services to health tech companies. “I have a husband who has a stable job. And so I was able to take a little bit of risk. I've made the least money I've ever made in my career, but I'm also not working as much because I'm trying to create space to be that Mom I don't get paid to do”. The consulting work provides both income and a way to stay connected to work she enjoys

Given her time away from direct patient care, I wondered whether she still refers to herself as a PA. Her answer speaks to the dilemma many of us can experience when no longer involved in traditional roles, regardless of our profession.

That should give you a good indication of how you would be seen in the HIH community. You would be valued not just for your credentials but also for who you are and how you choose to show up.

We leave our conversation agreeing on how one’s professional identity can change throughout a healthcare career and that you get to decide how you use it. She shared, “I think that's another piece of where I've worked really hard, especially in this career journey, which is knowing where I can hold my power, what choices I have, and how I will show up and present myself and use my credentials. That is where I can have that control. I get to decide if I want to show up as the PA today, the community builder or the mom, right? It’s very freeing”. 

At the end of our conversation, I imagine I’ve only had a glimpse of Amy Story, but I have every chance of knowing her more in Humans in Healthcare.

In weaving together the threads of community, creativity, and humanity, Amy's journey illuminates the power of embracing authenticity. Her story demonstrates that at the heart of vulnerability lies the strength to rebuild, connect, and inspire, guiding us toward a professional path honouring our values and aspirations.

Amy’s Wisdom:

• Have conversations and build relationships—Network, Amy style. Show interest in what others are doing. It can often come back in unexpected ways, so it's honestly just putting yourself out there and showing up.

• Be curious about how you might use your knowledge and skills. Ask yourself, what problem are you trying to solve? What is your area of expertise that you could use to add value? Why are you looking to make a change?

• Start, even if it’s small - don’t feel you must do everything simultaneously. You don’t need to prove your worth. Just provide value. No piece of paper’s ever going to qualify you. It may boost your confidence but shouldn’t stop you from getting started.

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