Show Notes
- Tammy Guest Website
- Unstress Health Related Podcast: Dr Tabitha Healey: Mental Health & Burnout in Medicine
- Unstress Health Related Podcast: Clark Gaither MD: Are You Burned Out?
Timestamps
00:00 – Introduction to Tammy Guest and her work
02:08 – Revisiting Hippocrates’ timeless wisdom06:29 – The role of education in practitioner care12:17 – Transformational vs. transactional healthcare18:26 – Addressing burnout in the healthcare profession23:54 – Compassion fatigue and solo practice challenges28:54 – Practical solutions for burnout and practitioner support34:36 – Balancing mental energy and finding your sweet spot40:32 – Key takeaways: Building sustainable healthcare careers
Burnout Recovery for Healthcare Providers with Tammy Guest
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:00:01] Hi, Dr. Ron. Here it. I want to invite you to join our Unstress Health community. Now, like this podcast, it’s independent of industry and focuses on taking a holistic approach to human health and to the health of the planet. The two are inseparable. There are so many resources available with membership, including regular live Q&A on specific topics with special guests, including many with our amazing Unstress Health Advisory Panel that we’ve done hundreds of podcasts over listening to with some amazing experts on a wide range of topics. Many are world leaders, but with membership we have our Unstress Blab podcast series where we take the best of several guests and carefully curated specific topics for episodes which are jam packed full of valuable insights. So join the Unstress Health community. If you’re watching this on our YouTube channel. Click on the link below or just visit unstresshealth.com to see what’s on offer and join now. I look forward to connecting with you. Hello and welcome to Unstress Health. My name is Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Well, today we explore burnout and fatigue and practitioner health and the difference between transformational and transactional experiences in a health setting. My guest is Tammy Guest. Now, Tammy is a natural health practitioner. She’s an educator, mentor. She helps practices, allied natural health practitioners all over Australia and beyond. She has a passion for education. She has a passion for practitioner health. She is a passionate practitioner. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Tammy Guest. Welcome to the show, Tammy.
Tammy Guest [00:02:08] Hi Dr. Ron. So good to see you.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:02:10] Tammy I’m look, I’ve been looking forward to this and and I know we share a lot of interests, share a lot of passion about practitioner health and health care in general. And one of the things I loved about you, you know, when when I invite a guest and this was what made it so unique, I always say I like to showcase the best of my guests. And here you are, Tammy. Guest I couldn’t have written the script better, but you wrote. I’m most interested about the opportunity and possibilities for health care professionals to be educators that Hippocrates and Edison spoke of. And I found that fascinating for two reasons. One, I think we should revisit what Hippocrates spoke of. Yeah, because most people will have heard of him in terms of health care. But I also am fascinated by the Edison. Let’s just revisit Hippocrates and how we have we drifted, where have we gone?
Tammy Guest [00:03:08] So I really feel like, you know, we’ve had 2500 years since Hippocrates. And it’s one of those things that whether you are an allied health practitioner, a natural health practitioner or a medico, there is this basis of ethical ethics that have come from our ancient Greeks. And those philosophies are some of the things that we, you know, oath we swear an oath to when we first starting out. And it seems like a thing that we had a bit of a tick and flick for, for our qualifications for lots of us. But more and more these days, there are the things that are timely and we, you know, we get on social media or we watch the news and all these timely things that are garnering our attention. But there’s these timeless philosophies that are actually underpinning everything that we could do now and in the future. And if it’s managed to the last 2500 years, then these philosophies, I really feel it’s time to really relook at them on a more modern kind of way of thinking. And one of those big ones is docore or doctor as teacher and that Latin terminology. It was debated a lot in the 1970s in a lot of the literature, if you check it out and in a good PubMed search. But it was debated a lot because we don’t necessarily have the time in that working working class aspect of what we were doing in the 70s to even the early 2000s that we didn’t have the time to be the teacher for the next generation of practitioners that were coming through. But we are doing it every single day for our clients, every single day for our patients. We are teaching them in ways and means that we don’t even know are making an impact until they come back years later and say, That thing you told me, I pass that on to my kids or that thing you told me, it just resonated for the rest of my life. Or that thing you told me actually changed the trajectory of what I am actually doing for my profession. There’s so many stories like that, especially in the natural health world, which is the one I’m majorly a part of. And I feel like now is a time in the 2020s that we have an opportunity to really leverage that doctor as teacher element of what we’re doing and be really the trusted advisers on the interwebs and in the other places and the spaces that we inhabit as the voice of reason and as the voice of, you know, qualified education on these these broader aspects of health that we weren’t really considering before, you know, dentists and teeth versus dentists and how we actually smile and accept ourselves as the beautiful humans that we are the dentists and those other. Elements of how we are interacting with the microbiome and things like that. It’s not just the one thing that we used to be trained in, it’s teaching. How is this part of our health and wellbeing a ripple effect for these other areas of our lives?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:06:29] Yeah, look, it’s so interesting and it may well go some way to explain why allied or natural health practitioners have become so popular with the population because they actually have the time or take the time to be educators. Whereas in the typical GP consultation, which I believe is somewhere between 8 and 15 minutes. Yes. You know, there’s not a lot of time there for education, particularly when you’re waiting room is full of of patients and you’re moving through a very busy day of 30, 40 or 50 patients. That is mind boggling.
Tammy Guest [00:07:09] It is, yeah.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:07:10] And that is that is not atypical. And we’re going to be talking about practitioner health as well. But I think the the doctor is teacher is one thing, but Hippocrates was also saying do no harm.
Tammy Guest [00:07:22] He was yes, he was saying do no harm. He was saying treat the cause. He was saying treat the whole person. And like you’re saying, if we’re talking about a 12 minute time slot to do all of that. It’s it’s an ask, isn’t it?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:07:36] It is. It is. And but Edison, what did Edison what can Edison teachers. This is what I found so fascinating.
Tammy Guest [00:07:43] Right. So Edison’s the light bulb guy, right?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:07:46] I know that. But go on.
Tammy Guest [00:07:49] His biggest he was really moved when different people in his family were being looked after and treated in the late 1800s. And he was saying the doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patient in the care of the human frame or in form, in proper diet and in the cause and prevention of disease. And I think there’s something really powerful in that in that there’s somewhere really great to start with, though, this this kind of time, although we’ve got so much more chronicity of disease, we also have the potential for prevention of disease like we’ve never had before. We’ve got access to all that information that used to be, you know, held back from people. We’ve got all that information for ourselves as the general public, not just practitioners. And there is a way, again, to be in the education space of looking after and taking care of the frame of the human form, the dietary requirements, because we’ve got access to so much more information around food than we ever had before, especially from the late 1800s. And how we are actually going and dealing with the cause, the the root cause of what’s actually going on rather than the symptomatic relief. And if somebody like Edison was saying this in the late 1800s, and we’ve taken this time to get to this stage where we have access to all of this information now, quite literally on their fingertips and in our pockets, I think it’s a really amazing time to be alive as a practitioner, to share that wisdom in a way that’s helpful for people rather than them, you know, doctor Googling.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:09:39] Yeah, it’s so interesting because I think one of the challenges for medical health practitioners in general, given the so much information out there, is what defines the difference in you as a practitioner. I mean, why would people bother to come to see you? Yeah. And I think that’s a fundamental question. I think a lot more health practitioners should be asking themselves.
Tammy Guest [00:10:06] Yeah, I think it’s a really powerful one to ask, even just as a person, not as a health practitioner.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:10:13] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Tammy Guest [00:10:15] What defines you as a person? What defines the things that are the boundaries of what you would love to talk about and what you’re here to talk about? And what what wisdom can you share from your experience as well as your qualification? I think there’s, you know, scope of practice questions in there as well as to, you know, what are the pieces that you’re actually qualified to talk about. And in the context of your wisdom and your experience and how would you like to portray that? Many of us with the the modern unity of being able to be a practitioner, how do we balance that with social media? How do we balance that with appearing on places like YouTube and podcasts? How do we balance sharing our wisdom, you know, in a way that’s going to be beneficial rather than going to just be more noise in in this world that we live in? Yeah.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:11:09] Yeah. It’s a lot more challenging, though, for health practitioners than it was, I mean. Tammy. I’ve been a health practitioner for a lot longer than you have, and I know that when I kicked off my practice in the late 70s, right, there was no Google. There was no you know, if you you really had to go looking for information. And so the doctor, as a godlike figure of knowledge was indisputable. But now our patients are coming in really well educated. And I know a lot of doctors and practitioners, particularly doctors, will dismiss this as Dr. Google. But I’ll tell you what, a lot of patients are very able, very capable of reading and understanding with less sort of baggage and just and just under. And so it becomes very challenging. Yeah, very challenging to to approach this. And how do you how do you navigate that? How do you advise your clients? Because I know you are mentoring a lot of health practitioners as well. Yeah. Advise them.
Tammy Guest [00:12:17] Yeah. So in our world, in the world of especially natural health practitioners and allied health, we do have a tendency to have a little bit more time with our clients. And in understanding that we have more time, there is an opportunity to build relationship and rapport in a way that isn’t transactional. That might happen in a short period of time where somebody is trying to be discerning about the research that their client’s done and brought with them. We do have an opportunity to have more of a transformational conversation than a transactional one. And that transformation happens through relationship building and empowering and collaborating with the client or the patient to come to a place of understanding rather than, you know, that that one way delivery of what, what what’s actually happening, what the opportunities or the options are for treatment and what you’re actually going to get from a behavioural change perspective with that person in front of you. So I think the, the empowering a client to be able to know themselves and know their own body is an amazing gift that we have as practitioners. And in working with them to do that, we do need a little dash more time to build that rapport and relationship. And but I think it’s much more rewarding in the long run. And even, you know, one of the things that we do with practitioners is empowering people to understand their own pathology results. And I know this this is going to be a dubious kind of thing for a lot of practitioners, but empowering a human to understand the cells inside the body. My background’s in cancer research and pathology, and I genuinely believe if you’ve got signals and signs that happen to be on a paper that happens to be pathology results and you can read those signals and signs as a snapshot of your health of what’s going on on the inside of this 3 trillion cell bag of cells that you get to wander around in all the time. What empowering thing for a human to be able to do to understand what’s happening on just under the surface of what’s going on for them? And in doing so, people are more empowered to start to make choices that are going to be beneficial for what’s happening under that skin, under that skin and in those bigger cells. And in doing so, I think there’s a ripple effect in being able to influence people around them. And so it’s not that burdened that the doctor is the only source of that information that a human is empowered to get their own information about their health is a profound, I think.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:15:18] It’s interesting. You’ve used the word transactional and transformational, and I know you’ve kind of described a little bit, but our listeners may have missed it a little bit. And I think it’s worth backtracking a little bit to just define the difference between transformational interaction with a health practitioner and transactional interaction.
Tammy Guest [00:15:40] Yeah. So we we’re living in a time where we can transact all sorts of things. Transactional is paying for whatever it happens to be with time, energy or money. You’re paying for that thing. And then as a result, you get whatever you paid for. And a transaction is I expect to get what I’m told is, you know, I expect to get, you know, a particular medicine. And I don’t really want to have to talk to anybody about it. I just want the medicine, let’s say a paracetamol, I get the paracetamol. It comes back in a very short period of time. If you only can describe one particular symptomology that you have. And many of us have experienced this through telehealth, we fill in the form and it says, What’s the one thing you want to talk to your your doctor about today? And you’re like, Well, there’s a lot.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:16:42] Of stuff.
Tammy Guest [00:16:42] Going on. But here’s the one thing. And when you go in, you get that one thing dealt with. You pay your money and that’s that. There isn’t a lot of scope for something other than a transaction, and that transaction is tit for tat. Whereas the transformation is how can I shift internally from the path I was on to a different path through. And, you know, Edison and Hippocrates had something to say about this through a conversation, through empowering knowledge, through and imparting wisdom. How can I shift from that? The tracker was going on, whether that’s down to gangrene or some other, you know, end point of type two diabetes assessment versus I’m now empowered to make these changes to my diet, to my lifestyle, to the stresses in my life, to the and even to, you know, what job I am now going to do when I’m saying yes and saying no to because I had a transformational conversation. I had a transformational interaction and relationship that has changed the trajectory of where I’m headed with my health might well be.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:17:53] Yes, I love that. And I think it was worth just reminding our listener about the difference. And of course, if one had to say how is medicine practised, I think a $1.6 trillion pharmaceutical industry would go a long way to describing how transactional medicine is conducted. Okay, great. And it’s a great economic model. There’s no question about that. Yes, it’s a win win. Well, it’s a win for the pharmaceutical industry. It’s actually not a win for public health. Not a win for individual health.
Tammy Guest [00:18:26] Well, preventative medicine or.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:18:27] Preventive medicine or dope all or the health of the practitioner. Absolutely. Would observe, which is something that we were going to talk about. And it’s something that we’ve explored on the podcast before with with doctors and nurses. But I haven’t really done it with allied health, natural health practitioners. Just remind our listener who that encompasses.
Tammy Guest [00:18:50] Yeah. So here in Australia we are an unregistered profession. Are degree qualified and have associations but are in the unregistered grey zone in the health world. Allied Health, which encompasses some of our colleagues in chiropractic osteopathy, are covered by APRHA and and we are working within the guidelines of that, but we aren’t actually covered by that. And so we have naturopathy nutritionists, herbalists, clinical nutritionists we’ve got and then we burgeon into the dieticians, chiropractors, manual therapies and osteopathy as well as TCM. So we have a lot of.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:19:36] Tradditional Chinese medicine.
Tammy Guest [00:19:37] Yes. So we’re trying to some extent, yes. So we yeah, we, we are especially the naturopathy nutritionist herbalists, we’re about 25,000 strong in Australia, whereas doctors I believe are in the 150,000 to 160,000 strong. And we are, we are because we’re in that beautiful grey zone. We we tend to be in a slightly beautiful grey zone for a lot of things. We don’t make enough. We I wish I could say it a different way. Not enough people die from us to be able to legislate against or surround the barriers with which we work. And in a similar way, not enough of us die from our work. And unfortunately, in the broader aspect of medicos in burnout, compassion fatigue and especially since the pandemic era, we’ve seen a lot of people in the health professions commit suicide and leave the profession from mental health issues and things.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:20:52] We’re talking across the.
Tammy Guest [00:20:54] Board, we’re talking across the board. And this is a theme.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:20:56] So we’re including allopathic traditional, what people would say tradition more.
Tammy Guest [00:21:02] So, More so in the allopathic world. Yes, more so in GP’s, more so in veterinary science as well. We’re seeing a lot of people under that much pressure from business. As changes from mental health, changes from so much pressure to do a job in a shorter period of time with more burden on the chronicity of health that especially in the more allopathic world we’re seeing a lot of we’re seeing higher rates of suicide since 2018, 2020, whereas in the allied health, in the natural health world, we don’t have those levels of suicide, but we have a huge level of people leaving the profession. And we have we see so many more when it comes to the burden of compassion fatigue and moving from the full time model to part time model. And we’re seeing a lot more people taking time out, which we see in the allopathic world of sabbaticals. We never had that in the natural health world and wasn’t something that we ever talk about. And we’re not even taught about compassion fatigue until a lot of us say we work in conjunction with allopathic medicos and specialists. A lot of this work in oncology and helping alongside the oncology journey, and many of us only start to understand the notion of compassion fatigue after seeing quite so many clients passing away and going through. And. Whereas, there is some really great avenues for medicos, there hasn’t ever been for the 20,000, 25,000 strong workforce that we have in the natural health world. And one of my passions is creating an assistance program very similar to an app that we would see in employee engagement for practitioners, for allied health practitioners, to ensure that they have the support that they need so that they aren’t leaving the profession, because we do have this burden of seeing and being with people for over an hour at a time, hearing things and stories that they haven’t told other people and taking that on as part of their the the healing journey.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:23:24] Hi Dr Ron here it I want to invite you to join our Unstress Health community. Now, like this podcast, it’s independent of industry and focuses on taking a holistic approach to human health and to the health of the planet. The two are inseparable. There are so many resources available with membership, including regular live Q&A on specific topics with special guests, including many with our amazing Unstress Health Advisory Panel that we’ve done hundreds of podcasts over listening to with some amazing experts on a wide range of topics. Many are world leaders, but with membership we have our Unstress web podcast series where we take the best of several guests and carefully curated specific topics for episodes which are jam packed full of valuable insights. So join the Unstress health community. If you’re watching this on our YouTube channel. Click on the link below or just visit unstresshealth.com to see what’s on offer and join now. I look forward to connecting with you. Because psychologists have supervision. I mean, that’s just built into their professional journey. Yeah. But it’s not the case in in health professionals. And you describe, you know, hearing stories and taking histories and all of that and seeing outcomes which can be particularly traumatic. And going home and then trying to live a normal life. How is your diet, dear? You know, Mr. So-and-so is going to die next week. Mrs. So-and-so died last week, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty good. I’m pretty good. Well, how was your day? You know, I mean, it’s just that kind of thing, isn’t it?
Tammy Guest [00:25:14] It is. And like you’re saying, it’s built into the psychology that mentoring programs and and that framework, it’s also built into the hospital system. And that framework debriefing is actually a required part of what you do on the job. We see that in a natural health world. Most of these practitioners are solo practitioners. They only work for themselves in their own office. They don’t work with other practitioners. And so that debriefing element isn’t built into our profession. And then you’re you’re also compounding that by them running their own businesses. And we all know what’s happened the past five years with small business and a small business that is in the business of health service is, you know, there is just so many other layers to. Yeah. How’s your day, darling? It’s fine. I’ve got the bills to pay. I’ve got the other things to pay. I’ve got to ensure that I’ve got to make sure that all of these things are looked after. And Mrs. So-and-so’s passing away next week?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:26:19] Yeah. Well, it’s not just that we don’t get supervision when we want when we are studying. And I think this is true of medicine, dentistry, naturopathy, you name it. I don’t think an awful lot of time is spent on managing your practice. You are running a business. You have to pay rent. You have to pay receptionist, You have to be here. You have to be there. You know, we’re just not very well equipped or most of us are not well equipped to deal with those challenges.
Tammy Guest [00:26:47] Yeah. And you’re identifying some really big gaps in the education piece for practitioners to be efficient practitioners in the world that we live in. Like you mentioned, there is a six month course on running a business in Naturopathy and all of that, I think, to Grace Yes, there’s this is one semester and that semester is putting together a multi-page business document that the vast majority never use, and then a spreadsheet that most people never use or never understand fully enough to tick a box that actually includes that you’ve done some business work. Then you get out into the world and you have to figure out how to put a website together, what that actually means, what you can and can’t say ACC. I will say in the TGA and all of the health claims and other things, you have to figure out how to get your first client. And back in the day in 1970 we would go and have a conversation down at the the Lions Club or the, you know, they are. So we’d have a have a little workshop. It doesn’t work like that. Now we’ve got Facebook ads and we’ve got all these other things that we’ve got to look after. And none of that’s actually covered. And you’re doing that learning on the job whilst having somebody in front of you that is having one of the most challenging times of their lives. And that’s reflected in a lot of the research. Dr. Amy Steele has done a lot of research in nut traffic practice in Australia, and some of her research has really garnered those three big places and spaces in new grads in the naturopathy degrees, having a massive gap when it comes to understanding their business. They’re worried about the future of the profession because we are in this unregistered grey area. And they’re also trying to get into terms of what does it take to be in clinical practice with multiple people time and time again in a day and not bring on the burden of compassion fatigue? So.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:28:54] And how are people presenting themselves? I mean, you know, because it’s a it’s a slow burn. I mean, using the term to burnout. Yeah, it’s a slow burn. And what appears normal, normal, normal, normal. Hang on. This can’t be normal. Yeah. Where do we. Where do we reach that point? What, in your experience, when do practitioners kind of reach that point and think, hang on. There’s got to be a better way?
Tammy Guest [00:29:21] Well, the World Health Organisation points out a bunch of things around burnout, especially for health practitioners, because the W.H.O. has health practitioners all around the world that are helping them out. And so they talk about it being. A unique and individual experience, and so does Gallup, Clifton Gallup. And they talk about depletion and exhaustion. They talk about being mentally distant or or emotionally distant from those people around you and cutting you off from self isolating from people who care about you. And they also talk about reducing your pressure, your professional efficacy, which for many of us means hiding in a cave away from your inbox, especially avoiding all of the text messages that are coming through that kind of cave type of scenario. But a lot of and not wanting to open the doors on the clinic, that’s a really common one for the people who are mental. They’ll be sitting outside just knowing that they’ve got, you know, a dozen people that they have to seen that day, but not wanting to open the doors of the clinic. The cave woman is a very typical kind of way of doing things. And then we have the people who are what we talk about is they have theyK Mart moment where they hop on, SEEK and figure out what they are actually going to go and do. And the next week as a different job. It’s that moment when they think I’m going to just jump from the profession and the industry. But then the next part of that is that noticing that our unique skills and talents and the way that we are built to help people, it doesn’t go away if we go and join Kmart. It doesn’t go away if we go and join the local shopping centre. It is.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:31:12] Although it’s definitely less confronting.
Tammy Guest [00:31:14] It is, yeah.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:31:15] It is less.
Tammy Guest [00:31:16] It’s less confronting. There is less uncertainty about it. You don’t, you know, on a day to day basis who’s going to walk in the door and you can clock on and clock off. There is all of that certainty that we don’t necessarily get as practitioners, which is why why we don’t do that moment of checking out SEEK. But then what it comes down to is, you know, we’re built to help people. We all got into this profession because we really want to help people. And we are lucky enough that there are so many different facets of this profession now, whether it’s creating really ethical medicines for people and being part of that manufacturing process, whether it’s creating workshops and education pieces. And what I get excited about and sharing your wisdom and knowledge from a qualified space using the platforms that we have, whether it is coming up with ideas for new and innovative ways to collaborate with other health practitioners, or it is actually seeing clients the way that we do right now in our clinical practice. There’s so many different facets that we have that that can enable a different way of thinking about our work.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:32:29] So when somebody comes to you and says, Look, I am really I’m overwhelmed. And it’s interesting because we’ve done this with Dr. Tabatha Healey, who is oncologist who burnt out and shared some shocking statistics. Something like 40% of doctors and 60% of nurses are burnt out. And she used the acronym DIE , disengaged, ineffective and exhausted. Yep. And but where do you start with with somebody who comes to you and says, I’m I think I’ve got burnout. What do we do? Where do you start?
Tammy Guest [00:33:07] As practitioners, we see a lot of people with burnout. Even just the global kind of indexes shows the 64% of anyone who has a job is.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:16] Is a patient. They as patients. Yes.
Tammy Guest [00:33:18] As patients. Yeah. I Belltown. And so we can identify it in other people way quicker than we can identify yourselves. And so often it’s the case that we talk about popping a mirror up to yourself. If you were your own patient, what would you do right now? What’s the advice that you would give? What’s the the listening ear that you would have? And more often than not, that’s a really great starting point because you’re starting to recognise in actual fact, you are showing signs and symptoms and you are exhibiting the, you know, the types of things that you see consistently in front of you. The other part of it is having somebody to talk to you. Loneliness is an epidemic at the moment, and there is so many other statistics around being alone and being a solo practitioner or a solo small business owner. It’s one of the bigger burdens that we have that can quite quickly be changed if we reach out to somebody, a colleague, previous, somebody who’s been in our qualification when we were a student, a mentor that we’ve been looking up to, and we’re really lucky in the natural health world. We have some really large online professional groups that we’re and I run one of those that create space for people to talk and debrief and connect with other practitioners who are likeminded in a similar kind of position or have been in the past and can, you know, share some wisdom on what’s what’s next steps. The part that following like the part after that is generally taking time out. And one of the things that we talk about in the profession is having either a radical sabbatical or or blocking out just at least one week where you can recuperate on the back end of your booking system, just blocking it out. Having that time out to recuperate, have a debriefing conversation, talk to somebody who’s who has been in this experience before, whether it’s a colleague or seeking that professional help. If you have got that notion that that burnout is showing signs and symptoms of something a little bit deeper and darker. It’s a really important thing to have some time out to be able to talk to somebody professional about it.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:35:36] I’ve always felt and I, you know, I’ve always felt that there’s a point of diminishing returns that a lot of practitioners, I think a lot of people in business, quite frankly, but certainly in health care, do not understand. And this comes back to your transactional and transformational approach. Transactional is pretty easy in many ways. I mean, it’s stressful in some ways, but hey, come in, give me a symptom. We know the game here. Don’t have too high expectation. You came in for a prescription. I’m giving you a prescription. It may be the latest or the greatest medication. According to the last drug rep that was in to see me. But here it is. And that’s one way. But the transformational requires a lot of mental energy, and there’s a point of diminishing returns. So by that I mean, you are you shouldn’t I mean, I’ve always said this in our practice. I don’t think dentists should work more than four days a week.
Tammy Guest [00:36:34] Yeah, I’m with you. If you if.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:36:35] You give if you are willing to give patients the time and energy that they deserve. You need the mental energy to deal with that. Yeah. And so, you know, four days max after that, you just can’t wait to get the patient out of the chair, you know, like, just give it to me quickly. I’ll give you the script. I’ll fix whatever needs fixing. Just go. And that would be your attitude. So there’s a sweet spot there, isn’t there? And I always think, you know, there’s a point of diminishing returns.
Tammy Guest [00:37:06] Agreed. And there’s this nuance. I mean, with this burgeoning kind of area of neurodiversity and neuro divergence, we’re starting to notice that different people’s brains work differently and like, it wasn’t obvious in the first place. But now we have words.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:37:23] For breakthroughs, right?
Tammy Guest [00:37:25] And the same goes for our practitioners. We all have different brains and different capacities for what we can handle socially, emotionally, mentally and energetically. And yes, for you and I, definitely four days is plenty that you do not need to be burning yourself out and setting yourself up for a situation like that. But in those four days, I’ve met practitioners who can do 14 clients a day and I met the vast majority of practitioners who can do six. And then they’re pushing it from a, you know, bandwidth perspective in their brains and what they can actually handle emotionally, energetically, mentally and even physically. And so when we’re talking about finding that sweet spot, it has to be that practitioner’s own sweet spot. Yes, we can give you guidelines to start off with work four days a week, only say 6 to 8 clients a day. You know, make sure that you’re having 20 minutes a day doing something you enjoy, Joy when you’re feeling joy, have something that you are looking and positively anticipating in the future. Otherwise, you can get a little bit dark and, you know, a lot of really good research about positive anticipation. Something on the horizon for yourself, like, I don’t know, a trip to Iceland or something or and having some guardrails for yourself and then feeling your way and how the capacity of your brain and your heart can actually associate with what that is from a longevity perspective. Nearly all of us have gotten into this as a lifestyle career. It is. We’re here for a reason. We’re here to help. It’s it’s not going to end next week. We’re going to be in this for the long haul. So we may as well make the most of the ideal schedule for us and our adrenals and our souls so that we can do this for the long haul and really help the people we’re here to help.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:39:17] Yes, it’s it’s about really holding that mirror up, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not just healer heal thy self, but it’s person. Know thyself. Yeah, Well, and listen to what your body and your mind is telling you. It’s a really interesting one, isn’t it? I so interesting to hear the allied natural health world and the challenges there as well, because as I said, we’ve looked at everything. But and and it’s interesting to see that this is an ongoing it’s a problem right across the board, isn’t it, in every profession? Yeah.
Tammy Guest [00:39:53] And I can see how easy it would be. I go to many barbecues and people assume that I’m a vegan because I’m a natural health practitioner. And we would assume that our natural health practitioners, just because we know how to look after ourselves, that we should be looking after ourselves. But it is the case that we are all health practitioners and we are all here to help others. And that burnout across the board is something that we need to address on a much broader scale because our healers need that help themselves. And it’s been really cool to be able to explore it with your doctor on. And I don’t think we’re at the end of it. I really think we’re at the start of asking even more conversations.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:40:32] We are. We are. We are. And I listen, I want to ask you one last question, because we are all individuals on a health journey through this modern world. And taking a step back from your role as a health practitioner, mentor, educator, what do you think the biggest challenge is for us as individuals on that journey?
Tammy Guest [00:40:54] Good question. I feel like the biggest challenge is. For me personally, it is knowing what needs to be done and the gap of actually choosing to do it.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:41:14] I think a lot of people will be able to relate to that one. Tammy, I think you. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. No, I mean. I mean. I mean, I’m interested in that. It is an interesting question because it is our biggest challenge, you know, what is our biggest challenge? I think that is really encompassing a lot. And and I think a lot of people will be able to relate to that. Listen, thank you so much for joining us. I was I was been looking forward to catching up with you. And I love what you’re doing and I love the whole energy that you bring to what you do. And and we’ll have links to your website, of course. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Tammy Guest [00:41:53] Fantastic. Thanks, Dr. Run.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:41:54] It’s so interesting to consider Thomas Edison. I mean, Hippocrates, we know, said lots of interesting things that are quoted often and for good reason. Do no harm. The Hippocratic Oath. Interesting when one considers that the third biggest killer in the United States is medication prescribed by medical practitioners. I believe something like 15,000 people a month die actually of medical induced death, if you like. So do no harm. Why Hippocratic Oath? We really should be repeating that more often. But Thomas Edison. And he of course Hippocrates. He said let food be thy medicine and medicine, be thy food or something like that. But Thomas Edison never thought of him as a person that I would quote. And Tammy has brought him to my attention. So I have to go and have a look and see the quote. And in 1903, Thomas Edison was concerned about the health care of his time. My goodness. I don’t know what he would make of American health to this day or health in general, but this is what he said. And I think it is really important. The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patient in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease. Well, there it is. I mean, you’d think that health practitioners would be healthy and actually nothing could be further from the truth. The statistics are rather alarming. I mean, I’ve actually although Tabitha Healy shared a study that said 40% of doctors and 60% of nurses are suffering from burnout. A more recent report showed that between 65 and 75% of the GP’s in Australia are suffering from burnout. Well, whether it’s 40%, 60%, 75% it’s a lot and these are the people that are delivering our health care system. And the other side of the coin is that public health is not in great shape either. However, we’ve done lots of podcasts with health practitioners who have followed the party line of Australian Healthy Eating Guidelines and all the Practitioner Guidelines about prescribe prescribing statins for high cholesterol and anti-depressants for depressed people and and etc., etc. until they themselves have had a health problem. A good example is type two diabetes, Type two diabetes. Most medical professionals have been taught that it is irreversible. And if you are a regular listen to this podcast, you know for a fact that that is not the case. And interestingly, many doctors who suddenly get a diagnosis of type two diabetes explore alternatives, and that is often a low carb and or a ketogenic diet, but even just a low carb diet, turn their health around and enjoy the best health they’ve ever enjoyed and then go on to impart that onto patients. So the corollary of a burnt out profession is that a healthy profession will end up with healthy patients and it will be a win win win, a win for the individual patient, a win for the individual doctor, a win for the public health system, a win for society, a loss for the pharmaceutical industry. But I think we can all agree that our priorities need to be switched to to the win win win situation. Anyway, it was great to talk to. Tammy was very interesting to hear about the Allied natural health world as well. And we will of course have links to her website. I hope this find you will. Until next time. This is Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Okay. Well, feeling stressed? Overwhelmed. It’s time to answer. Your life. Join the Unstress health community and transform stress into strength. Build mental fitness from self-sabotage to self-mastery. And together, let’s not just survive, but thrive. Expert led courses, curated podcasts, like minded community and support, and much more. Visit Unstress health.com today. This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health and related subjects. This content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences and conclusions.
