Symptoms of stress and burnout can include anxiety, new cynicism, low work satisfaction, and feeling a lack of achievement and self-worth. As health professionals we're not so good at focusing on our own wellbeing. It's important we identify and respond to our own levels of stress, distress in our workplace and focus on healthy communication and self-care.
Dr Fiona Moir talks about clinician wellbeing and its importance in our functioning as medical professionals and human beings, including:
- Techniques to manage stress and worry.
- How to stay calm in a very stressful moment.
- Identifying, preventing and managing burnout.
- How to incorporate self-care into your day.
- Wellbeing and how to foster this as a clinician.
Resources
- CALM
- The Black Dog Institute
- Beyond Blue
- Big White Wall
- The Mental Health Foundation
- Self-care of Physicians Caring for Patients at the End of Life …Being Connected a Key to My Survival. JAMA (2009)
- Authentic Happiness
- Apps: Headspace, Smiling mind, Insight Timer
- Fiona Moir
Presenter
Dr Fiona Moir
MBChB MRCGP PhD
Fiona trained in the UK at Sheffield University, and went on to work as a GP in the UK and New Zealand. She now works in a part-time role in the Medical Programme Directorate and in The Department of General Practice at The University of Auckland as a Senior Lecturer. Within this job, she has developed SAFE-DRS, a Health and Wellbeing curriculum for medical students, and has created comprehensive pastoral care policies and care pathways for the medical school. In 2016, she was appointed as a Director of Medical Student Affairs. Outside of the University, she is also a Director of two companies: Connect Communications, a medical education business which designs and facilitates self-care, supervision and communication skills sessions for health professionals, and First Response, a company specialising in peer-interventions for identifying and responding to distress in the workplace.
In 2008, she was one of the co-authors of the CALM website, a resource for stress management and happiness, which was originally made available to students and then later released to the public. Her interests are: early interventions for stress, anxiety and depression; self-care; the health of health professionals; healthy workplaces and communication. Her PhD is in the area of peer-led interventions to improve mental health. In 2018, she won the University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor’s excellence award for Health, Safety and Wellbeing.
