Blog Finding a Good Balance: Work life balance and not burning out

Finding a Good Balance: Work life balance and not burning out

04/01/2024


This iteration of the newsletter will be more of a dialogue and discussion based on my personal experience with finding balance and happiness in the workplace and my journey with the hopes that it either gives some people an insight on what others have gone through and it can get better, things to try to make your balance more manageable, or just know that someone else has gone through the same struggles you are and know you aren’t alone.

How I eventually found balance: 

The journey: I started as a new grad how many people will, I applied to multiple positions and as a new grad the options and responses I got for an acute care hospital were pretty slim so I took the first hospital job that I was offered, starting with a schedule of 4 days a week, 10 hour shifts, working Friday through Monday, and as a new grad I was just happy to have gotten a job offer so I was happy. As I went through my first 2 years of work I enjoyed the hospital setting as I had throughout clinicals which is what drew me to the acute hospital setting, but with the onset of COVID and some of the difficulties that came along with it with patient care and trying to determine if what I was doing for some of these critical patients was helping or more harmful to them and having many patients who did not survive their hospital stay, I started to have some second thoughts about the setting for the long term. So I thought to myself, what are the things I enjoy most about PT and what patient population do I enjoy working with most, and I determined I like working with more involved patients where I get to see growth and working with neuro patients that I can feel like I’m making a worthwhile difference in their lives.

So I looked into working at a neuro rehab facility that was opening and got a per diem job there and was able to speak with my boss at the hospital and get my schedule changed now to Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Friday so I could work Saturdays at least at the neuro job. However, what I found is that although the idea behind the neuro facility was nice in theory, the reality was that I was seeing a lot of the same patient population that I was in the hospital and because the neuro rehab hospital was just starting to grow and the more severe neurological injuries were going to larger hospitals out of state, I wasn’t really seeing more CVA, TBI or SCI patients at this job. And to add to the fact that I wasn’t seeing more of the patient population I wanted to see, I was also working sometimes 10-12 days in a row if the days I work at the rehab hospital and the acute hospital ended up overlapping, so it was almost creating more burnout without the payout of seeing my favorite patient population. So what I decided at that point was to stop working at the neuro rehab facility and just focus on the acute hospital and tell my boss and the scheduling PTs that I would like to be involved more in neuro care and be in the ICU more where most of the neuro patients would be.

That was successful for awhile but after a year or two more of this I was still feeling burnt out, but I realized it was more because of other factors like the way the PTO system worked and the restrictions on time off and schedule flexibility. Unfortunately during the COVID period I became sick twice and was required to take time off which we had to use PTO initially for before sick time came into play, so my PTO bank was pretty depleted from getting married and our honeymoon, getting sick, and just needing some general sick days as well along the way, and I got to the point where I was getting no pay days while sick because I had exhausted both my PTO and sick leave banks. This caused me to miss out on vacations and other events that I wanted to go to with my family which really hit me hard. There was also the feeling of the 10 hour full-time shift becoming suffocating in a way because I had no flexibility, I knew I had to work these 4 days, every week for every month unless I took time off, and I had to stay for the entire 10 hours and get this amount of units to meet productivity, and if I was having a slow day I would have to run around trying to pick up new patients in order to meet productivity even if I kept getting patient deferrals. So I talked to one of my friends who started as a full-time and went to per diem recently about how she liked the switch, and she had nothing but good things to say about the switch for her happiness and mentioned the flexibility as a big bonus, so I considered making the switch for a few months and even made one last schedule change to only working two days at a time which felt like it would be a manageable workload with plenty of time off, but I met the same issue again of still feeling restrained by PTO and the full time expectations.

So I approached my boss about moving to per diem, and she was very understanding through this process which I appreciate greatly. *Disclaimer that my experience here with staffing and scheduling of per diems at this hospital may not be the same for a majority of people*. So once I made the switch to per diem I was working 4 days a week, essentially a “full-time” per diem because I was only working at this hospital near-fulltime hours on a consistent basis. And although I was still working a similar amount, I felt much better each week because per diem is only an 8 hour shift, so I had some freedom to cook dinner or work out or just relax after work instead of coming home, showering, eating dinner and going to sleep. I also had the flexibility when giving my availability for the month to say I only want to work 3 days a week this month, or I am unavailable for these 5 days this month and know I get those days off without worrying about if I have enough PTO, so I can go on any family vacation as long as I know in a month advance. The days I work each week also change week to week so that was a fun change where maybe I work Sunday, Monday and then Friday one week, and the next week I work Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday, so I was getting plenty of rest days between work days still.

And I just want to put a caveat out there that there are of course drawbacks to per diem as well, with likely needing to purchase your own health, dental and vision insurance and not having those benefits provided by the company, so it might not be an option financially for some people who may need those benefits included, but again this is just what worked for me and something to consider. I was able to at least maintain the 401K and pension contributions as long as I worked enough hours which I was and still am currently.

So that’s my story, hopefully it can even help 1 or 2 people who may be going through something similar or just resonate with some people who went through a similar journey, but the biggest takeaway I hope you get from this post is just that balance is so important for your physical and mental health that you should keep trying until you find it. As you can see from this it took me a few tries so it might take you a few as well, but I hope we can all find a good balance and continue to enjoy doing what we worked so hard in school to do!


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