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Melanie Cole (Host): Expert Insights is an ongoing medical education podcast. The Carle Division of Continuing Education designates that each episode of this enduring material is worth a maximum of 0.25 AMA PRA category one credit. To collect credit, please click on the link and complete the episode’s posttest.

As physicians face the stress of more complex medical issues and not enough hours in the day, they can face burnout; however, a good fitness and nutrition program can help to alleviate some of that burnout and even help with the mental health of physicians. My guest today is Dr. J Jimenez. He is a fitness expert and a member of the Physician Wellness Committee at the Carle Foundation Hospital. Dr. Jimenez, while we’re talking a little bit about burnout, but mostly about physical activity for physicians, how do you view physician wellness and burnout as affecting the doc’s overall health?

Dr. Juan Jimenez (Guest): Well I think the issue of burnout has been brought to light frequently in the last three or four years, at least in our organization. It definitely takes its impact on physical health. You know, the work that we do is very demanding, the hours are demanding, there’s the whole issue of compassion, fatigue, and just being physically and emotionally drained at the end of the day and there’s no denying that this is going to have some kind of impact on the physician’s physical health, whether it be through poor dietary choices, maybe high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, or even just mental health and emotional stress.

Host: Well that certainly is true and we’ve often heard, you don’t have time to exercise, you have to make time to exercise – if docs are running 24/7 with their patients, how are we expecting them to have time to exercise?

Dr. Jimenez: You know, I used to fall prey to the whole I don’t have time argument, but it’s really like anything else, we make time for the things that are important to us, and unfortunately, being physicians and having that sort of altruistic mentality of we always have to be taking care of other people before ourselves. We’re less likely to carve that time out of our day to take the time to exercise or maybe eat healthy. I’ve made it a habit personally. I don’t view exercise or physical activity as a luxury. I look at it as a necessity. Our bodies are fragile. We need to have physical activity in order to maintain health. We need to eat well in order to maintain health, and so that’s really every bit as important as anything else that we do. In fact, if we’re not well ourselves, our ability to care for our patients is impacted.

Host: Well that certainly is true. You have to put your own mask on before you put the mask of your loved ones, or in this case, your patients on. There’s also the modeling – physician role modeling for their patients. If they’re working with patients that have diabetes or high blood pressure or heart disease, for them to see their physicians doing what their recommending, doesn’t that help overall health of the community?

Dr. Jimenez: I mean absolutely. I look at it this way, if I’m going to hire a landscaper, I want to drive by his yard and it better be the most fantastic looking yard in the neighborhood, right? I look at our role in healthcare delivery and health modeling the same way. We’re telling our patients to make lifestyle choices. We are giving them advice about exercise and diet. How can they trust us if we don’t model that behavior ourselves and I realize it’s very difficult to do and I know that I’ve got many physician colleagues that maybe aren’t the picture of good health, but anything that we can do within our organization, either through the wellness committee, through various policies and workplace redesigns to encourage the healthy behaviors, give people the tools that they need to maintain fitness and model it for their patients, we’ll be much better off.

Host: Tell us about the onsite fitness center for employees and how Carle is helping physicians find that time in their day and be able to get, even if it’s not an hour and a half workout or – at least something that they can do to help boost their energy in the day and help them focus.

Dr. Jimenez: Well I tell you this has been a great win for our organization. The Charge-up Fitness Center has been operational for almost a year now, and I use it frequently and I see the same sort of core of people in there during the lunch hour, but it’s open 24/7 so employees coming on and off shift at different times of the day can take advantage of the facility and get a workout in. You know, it’s interesting that you mention the whole idea about time. Recently I was assigned to a weekend duty where we work 12 hour shifts and it’s pretty much nonstop so it’s very difficult to find an hour break to go workout, but it’s not difficult to find 10 minutes time where you have not a whole lot going on. So what I do over the course of a 12 hour shift is I walk down to the fitness center three or four times, did a little 10 minute exercise routine with some of the weight machines there, and by the end of the day, I had racked up 30 to 40 minutes of exercise that I wouldn’t normally have had, and without having that facility on site, that would’ve been very difficult to achieve, so it’s really I think – helps address that issue of being time starved and making time to go to the gym and that kind of thing.

Host: You know your mentioning the machinery, Dr. Jimenez, and many people will assume physicians will know how to exercise and know how to use the equipment, but they’re not always getting exercise physiology in school, as they’re not always getting nutrition in school. How can they learn to use this equipment if they don’t already know? Who can they turn to?

Dr. Jimenez: Well when we first opened the fitness center, we had series of sessions where we brought some of our athletic trainers from our sports medicine facility over to the facility and they just kind of hung out and helped people learn how to operate the equipment effectively, and more importantly safely because weight lifting can be dangerous if you do it improperly, people get injured. We do plan to perhaps repeat that again. I know the marketing department and the human resources department is doing a promotion right now, trying to remind people about the fitness center, especially with it being early in the year and the New Year’s resolutions. I’ve personally noticed a lot more people in the gym the last couple of weeks, which is a great thing. We want to see the facility to get used to its fullest.

Host: What are some of the key elements of the center that you would like physicians specifically to take advantage of. We know there’s treadmills and some machines, but do you see anything specific that you think, you know this is great, really relaxing, meditative, mindfulness, whatever it is for physicians?

Dr. Jimenez: I tend to notice a lot of people, physicians and other staff as well utilize the treadmills, so walking seems to be a very popular thing, and I think it’s something that just getting on the treadmill, walking at an easy pace, some people they’re still wearing their scrubs, their work clothes because they’re not working up a real sweat but it’s just something to just get out of the chair and move, and we’ve got TVs and people have their devices plugged in and they’re in a zone, listening to music or watching a TV show on their iPad and just getting a little bit of exercise, and I think the important thing is we don’t have to go out and exercise vigorously and lift a bunch of weight, it’s just really about getting out of the chair, getting moving, developing the healthy habits of doing it regularly and people start to see some results.

Host: Well I certainly agree with you, and what would you like to add as we wrap up, Dr. Jimenez about the importance of fitness and health for physicians and healthcare providers, not only for their own physical and mental health, but also as a role model, what would you like them to take away from this segment?

Dr. Jimenez: Well getting back to the whole burnout issue, and I know everybody’s different, physicians are no exception, people have different methods of establishing resiliency to stress and work. For me it happens to be exercise. I take a lot of joy in it, it makes me feel good, it relieves my stress, but for other people it might be something different. I think the key is to find what works for you, do it regularly, make it a habit, schedule the time like you would anything else because our health as physicians is just as important as the health of our patients and if we’re not well, we can’t keep our patients well.

Host: Well that certainly is true and thank you so much Dr. Jimenez for coming on with us today and explaining something that people don’t always realize, that physicians need to care for themselves as well. It’s really important information. This is Expert Insights with the Carle Foundation. For a listing of Carle providers and to view Carle sponsored educational activities, please visit carleconnect.com, that’s carleconnect.com. We hope the information gained will be applicable to your work and life. This is Melanie Cole, thanks for tuning in today.