Tuesdays: 5:00pm - 6:00pm (EST)
EPISODE SUMMARY:
In this episode, we'll take a deep dive into the unseen wounds we carry—those moments when something inside just doesn’t feel right. We’re talking about moral injury, a struggle that goes beyond physical or emotional pain. Whether it's from a difficult decision, a betrayal of values, or witnessing something that shook you to your core, moral injury can leave a lasting impact.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:
This conversation is for anyone who has ever questioned, "Why doesn’t this sit right with me?" and is looking for a path forward.
- Recognize the Signs – Understand what moral injury is and how it might be affecting your well-being, even if you’ve never put a name to it.
- Find Healing – Explore real, practical ways to work through the emotional weight and start your journey toward recovery.
- Hear Stories of Resilience – Learn from those who have faced and overcome moral injury, with insights from professionals who specialize in healing and self-repair.
- Recognize You’re Not Alone – If you've ever felt that inner conflict, regret, or emotional exhaustion, this episode will help you make sense of it and take steps toward feeling whole again.
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ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Dr. Jennie Byrne is an advisor for healthcare innovators to help shape the future of healthcare. She is a Co-Founder of Belong Health, a made-for-purpose healthcare company that serves vulnerable populations through health plan partnerships and ACO-REACH. She has a dual background as an MD/PhD in neuroscience and a board-certified psychiatrist, an entrepreneur who previously founded, grew, and exited a clinical organization, and served in a C-suite executive at a national level. She is a speaker and the best-selling author of "Work Smart", a book on how to use brain and behavior science to work smarter. Her second book, "Moral Injury : Healing the Healers" focuses on the clinician crisis facing the American healthcare system today. Finally as a practicing psychiatrist she focuses on caring for other physicians with mental health needs, including depression, anxiety, ADHD, burnout, and moral injury.
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LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE:
www.gotowerscope.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjenniebyrne/
https://drjenniebyrne.com/
https://www.constellationpllc.com/
Tune in for this empowering conversation at TalkRadio.nyc
Dr. Mira Brancu kicks off The Hard Skills by diving into the critical topic of moral injury in leadership, particularly within healthcare, featuring guest Dr. Jennie Byrne—an expert in neuroscience, psychiatry, and organizational well-being. Dr. Byrne explores how moral injury, distinct from burnout or PTSD, arises when professionals are forced to act against their core values under high-stakes conditions, leading to deep psychological wounds that simple rest or self-care cannot heal. This conversation is essential for leaders and high-achievers navigating workplace challenges, offering insights into recognizing moral injury, understanding its impact, and finding ways to heal and create healthier work environments.
Dr. Jennie Byrne discusses the systemic factors fueling moral injury in healthcare, highlighting the explosion of medical complexity, the industrialization of medicine, and the erosion of physicians' societal respect. She explains how clinicians are increasingly pressured to see more patients in less time to meet financial demands, leading to burnout, frustration, and a sense of being treated like mere cogs in a machine. These challenges, combined with the high debt burden and long training periods for medical professionals, are driving many to leave the field, making this an urgent issue for healthcare leaders and policymakers to address.
Dr. Jennie Byrne introduces the concept of medical empathy, explaining how true healing in healthcare goes beyond clinical expertise to include deep human connection—something increasingly lost in today’s industrialized medical system. She outlines moral injury as a progressive condition, comparing it to pressure wounds that worsen over time, moving from initial fatigue to severe psychological distress if left unaddressed. Leaders must recognize early warning signs and implement systemic changes to support professionals before they reach a breaking point, emphasizing that simply advising self-care is insufficient without addressing deeper workplace challenges.
Dr. Jennie Byrne outlines key strategies for healing from moral injury, emphasizing the power of storytelling, creating safe spaces, and reimagining healthcare with human-centered solutions. Leaders play a critical role in normalizing these conversations, fostering environments where professionals can express vulnerability, and leveraging technology to reduce inefficiencies while preserving human connection. Small acts of kindness and intentional leadership can create meaningful change, and those struggling with moral injury should remember they are not alone—help and support are available to navigate this complex challenge.
00:00:52.000 --> 00:01:12.500 Mira Brancu: Welcome. Welcome back to the hard skills show where we take a deep dive into the most challenging soft skills required to navigate leadership, uncertainty, complexities and change today and into the future. I'm your host, Dr. Mira Bronk, who, I'm a psychologist leadership consultant and founder of Towerscope.
00:01:12.720 --> 00:01:27.179 Mira Brancu: And I'm so excited for today's episode on healing from moral injury with Dr. Jenny Byrne, not just because she really enjoyed the beginning music, but also because I feel like it's especially
00:01:27.330 --> 00:01:28.560 Mira Brancu: relevant.
00:01:28.860 --> 00:01:32.920 Mira Brancu: Given the stressful national events we're all grappling with right now.
00:01:33.100 --> 00:01:39.110 Mira Brancu: and their impact on how organizations are going about supporting or not supporting their employees through this.
00:01:39.290 --> 00:01:52.330 Mira Brancu: And it's also a great topic to help us kick off. Season 7. Focused on navigating, unhealthy work environments in honor of my new book, millennials, workbook for navigating workplace politics.
00:01:52.590 --> 00:01:59.320 Mira Brancu: So whether you're a leader managing a team or simply trying to support your colleagues, this conversation is for you.
00:01:59.630 --> 00:02:01.490 Mira Brancu: Let me introduce
00:02:01.870 --> 00:02:11.220 Mira Brancu: our extraordinary guest today, Dr. Jenny Byrne. She is an advisor for healthcare innovators to help shape the future of healthcare.
00:02:11.390 --> 00:02:32.030 Mira Brancu: She is co-founder of belong health, a healthcare company that serves vulnerable populations. She has a dual background as an Md. Phd. In neuroscience and a board of certified psychiatrist. She's an entrepreneur who previously founded, grew and exited a clinical organization, and served in a C-suite executive at a national level.
00:02:32.310 --> 00:02:36.109 Mira Brancu: She is a speaker and bestselling author of work, Smart.
00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:53.200 Mira Brancu: a book on how to Use Brain Behavior, Science to Work smarter, and her second book, Moral Injury Healing the Healers focuses on the clinician crisis facing the American healthcare system today. And that's what we're talking about today. So finally, also.
00:02:53.510 --> 00:03:07.899 Mira Brancu: as a practicing psychiatrist, she focuses on caring for other physicians with mental health needs, including depression, anxiety, Adhd Burnout, and moral injury. So she's kind of like a jack of all trades, expert in many
00:03:08.330 --> 00:03:11.709 Mira Brancu: welcome and great to have you on the show, Jenny.
00:03:13.008 --> 00:03:14.500 Dr Jennie Byrne: Thank you for having me.
00:03:14.500 --> 00:03:26.209 Mira Brancu: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, with all of your many interests and areas of expertise, why moral injury? How did you end up in this particular topic area of interest.
00:03:27.230 --> 00:03:51.320 Dr Jennie Byrne: That's a great question. So as with many things in life, it was not a linear path, saying, I'm going to publish this book. And it wasn't actually a goal of mine to publish a second book in a year. It's actually fairly ambitious. I wasn't planning that, but the reason I felt compelled to write it and publish it, and I did it in 4 months, which, as you know, from being an author, is like very fast.
00:03:51.320 --> 00:03:51.960 Mira Brancu: Yes.
00:03:52.120 --> 00:04:13.459 Dr Jennie Byrne: I felt really compelled to put this out into the world, because my work I have a very interesting seat. I get to see a lot of different pieces of the puzzle in healthcare all the way from C-suite down into the field work, thinking about finance and tech and all these things, and what was really standing out to me in
00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:20.620 Dr Jennie Byrne: kind of late 2023 was the fact that behind closed doors everybody was saying the same thing.
00:04:20.730 --> 00:04:32.024 Dr Jennie Byrne: and nobody was saying it to each other and what they were saying to me, and I guess because I'm a shrink. People just tell me things but they would say, Jenny, and they, you know, before the zoom call started, or whatever they'd say.
00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:41.370 Dr Jennie Byrne: you know I don't know. Things just don't feel right at work like as soon as I can get enough money to pay for my kids to go to college like I'm out of here.
00:04:41.800 --> 00:05:06.009 Dr Jennie Byrne: or I'm thinking of downsizing my house so that I don't have to do this anymore. And these are people who are very passionate about what they do. Some have spent decades of education. Some of these C-suite leaders. You look at them, and they seem like they have everything anybody could ever want, and they were all struggling with some of the same bad feelings. And so I got really curious about it.
00:05:06.170 --> 00:05:27.899 Dr Jennie Byrne: and I was like, what's going on here, and people would say it was burnout, and I was like, I don't know. That just doesn't feel right. To me. It seems like something else is going. So I started researching. I started talking to a lot of colleagues, and one of my interviews led me to Dr. Warren Kinghorn, who is native to Durham, North Carolina, which is right down the road from us.
00:05:27.980 --> 00:05:38.749 Dr Jennie Byrne: and he was a really interesting. He is a really interesting person that has a combination of background in divinity training, military. He works at the Va. And psychiatry.
00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:52.610 Dr Jennie Byrne: and he introduced me to the idea of moral injury. So it comes from the military, and when I heard that and started listening to him and reading. I was like, that's really something important like this really captures what I think is going on.
00:05:52.820 --> 00:06:03.700 Dr Jennie Byrne: And so that's kind of how I went down the path. And then I did a bunch of interviews, which again, when you write a book, sometimes the interviews take you off in new directions, which is one of the fun parts. And so I learned a ton.
00:06:03.900 --> 00:06:06.899 Dr Jennie Byrne: did a lot of research, got a lot of stories, and
00:06:07.190 --> 00:06:14.119 Dr Jennie Byrne: and really very vulnerable stories from the people I interviewed. So this book felt a little bit different than the 1st one.
00:06:14.620 --> 00:06:17.740 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah. So let's
00:06:17.860 --> 00:06:34.480 Mira Brancu: talk about definitions, because, you know, some people who might be listening at a very surface level would say, oh, you know that just describes stress, or like you said that just describes burnout right? But you've done a good job of teasing that apart in your book and
00:06:35.314 --> 00:06:51.580 Mira Brancu: and it is true that moral injury, that sort of topic area really did start emerge much more out of the military experience where? You know. It's the experience of a
00:06:51.940 --> 00:07:09.199 Mira Brancu: for example, combat soldier doing things that were required of them. But then, realizing later, it was against their personal morals, and and all of a sudden it was kind of a moral dilemma like.
00:07:09.320 --> 00:07:17.570 Mira Brancu: what did I do? Who am I? What does this mean? Does God exist like an existential kind of crisis? Right? And so
00:07:17.900 --> 00:07:25.999 Mira Brancu: let's tease apart. Some things that I think. There are some overlaps between.
00:07:26.110 --> 00:07:49.150 Mira Brancu: But there's some clear like it feels different. And some of these are diagnoses, and some of these are not right. They don't right? So that's, I think, an important. So the things that come up immediately are we talked about burnout. We talked about just stress, right? The moral injury, post-traumatic stress disorder. There's some overlaps there.
00:07:49.250 --> 00:08:17.910 Mira Brancu: Compassion, fatigue, right? That's been talked about kind of a while ago, and that comes more out of the nursing industry, right and experiences and organizational and institutional trauma. Right? There's some overlaps there. Not all of these are mental health conditions, though. Right? So I would love to hear like your thoughts about? How do you tease them apart when you're talking? And when you hear these stories, how do you think? Oh, that's much more like this, or that's more like this one.
00:08:18.290 --> 00:08:20.280 Dr Jennie Byrne: Yeah, great question. So
00:08:20.510 --> 00:08:40.650 Dr Jennie Byrne: I'm very visual person. So if you could imagine if we were standing together and have a whiteboard right now, but if you can imagine a Venn diagram so kind of like 3 circles that are overlapping, so 3 of those terms, I think it's helpful to imagine, as a Venn so burnout moral injury, and Ptsd or trauma.
00:08:40.929 --> 00:08:45.599 Dr Jennie Byrne: I think that's really helpful, especially for the healthcare experience. So
00:08:45.880 --> 00:08:50.659 Dr Jennie Byrne: the reason it matters why what we call things is because
00:08:51.100 --> 00:08:55.370 Dr Jennie Byrne: the pragmatic way to heal or fix things
00:08:55.800 --> 00:09:00.250 Dr Jennie Byrne: comes from knowing what they are. And these 3 things have very different
00:09:01.300 --> 00:09:15.659 Dr Jennie Byrne: healing mechanisms or ways to fix it. So if you're calling something by the wrong name, you might waste a whole bunch of time and money trying to heal or fix it when you're not. You're you're like gone down the wrong path, basically. So that's why it matters
00:09:16.870 --> 00:09:28.249 Dr Jennie Byrne: So burnout. Let's take the 1st one, the circle of burnout. I would describe burnout, and there's different definitions now, because it's so commonly used. I would define it as a state of energy depletion.
00:09:28.690 --> 00:09:35.470 Dr Jennie Byrne: and that could be physiological exhaustion, mental exhaustion. It's just exhaustion.
00:09:35.670 --> 00:09:36.640 Dr Jennie Byrne: So
00:09:36.980 --> 00:09:55.599 Dr Jennie Byrne: in the past people have talked about fixing burnout by not being exhausted anymore, taking vacation, doing Yoga, taking care of yourself, taking a Sabbatical, whatever those were the ways that you improve exhaustion, and that is true. If the underlying cause is exhaustion.
00:09:55.720 --> 00:09:58.059 Dr Jennie Byrne: and you rest, you can come back.
00:09:59.478 --> 00:10:07.369 Dr Jennie Byrne: Then you have moral injury, moral injury like you mentioned. I use the definition from the military, which is a threefold definition
00:10:07.790 --> 00:10:16.439 Dr Jennie Byrne: that you do something, witness something, part of something, or unable to stop, something that goes against your values
00:10:16.790 --> 00:10:24.789 Dr Jennie Byrne: and those can be personal values, religious values, professional values, community values, whatever they are.
00:10:24.920 --> 00:10:30.430 Dr Jennie Byrne: The second thing is that somebody superior to you either orders it or condones it.
00:10:31.350 --> 00:10:34.940 Dr Jennie Byrne: And then the final 3rd thing is that the stakes are high.
00:10:35.470 --> 00:10:40.779 Dr Jennie Byrne: So obviously in the military stakes are often high, but in healthcare.
00:10:41.250 --> 00:10:42.839 Dr Jennie Byrne: you know, if you're a clinician.
00:10:43.500 --> 00:10:46.549 Dr Jennie Byrne: stakes feel high. Everything you do feels like it could
00:10:46.700 --> 00:10:52.019 Dr Jennie Byrne: be almost a life or death issue. Every click of your mouth feels high stakes.
00:10:52.790 --> 00:10:55.699 Dr Jennie Byrne: So that's kind of the moral injury. And I would say.
00:10:56.190 --> 00:11:00.300 Dr Jennie Byrne: the the way I like to think about it is, it's more of a wound
00:11:00.630 --> 00:11:12.520 Dr Jennie Byrne: that needs to be healed. It's not a light bulb that gets swapped out like a burnout implies an industrial light bulb kind of thing that you just get a new light bulb or recharge your battery.
00:11:12.940 --> 00:11:19.249 Dr Jennie Byrne: I don't think that works for moral injury. Moral injury is like a wound, and and you could even say it's like a wound on your soul
00:11:19.510 --> 00:11:21.584 Dr Jennie Byrne: which is kind of deep.
00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:26.849 Dr Jennie Byrne: so so that's the second circle, and then you have the 3, rd which is more of trauma.
00:11:27.230 --> 00:11:36.489 Dr Jennie Byrne: And you know some people exposed to trauma develop Ptsd, which is post-traumatic stress disorder. Some people exposed to trauma do not.
00:11:37.703 --> 00:11:41.250 Dr Jennie Byrne: I would in the healthcare setting posit that
00:11:41.410 --> 00:11:45.380 Dr Jennie Byrne: the pandemic was a global trauma for healthcare.
00:11:46.200 --> 00:12:09.669 Dr Jennie Byrne: even if you didn't have other traumas going on in your life which many people did. But even if you didn't, as a healthcare clinician. It was a trauma, and even as an executive that was a trauma. So then, you think about the Venn diagram, and you try to figure out when you hear a story. Okay, where is the story falling? Is it more clearly in the burnout camp? Is it in the intersection of burnout moral injury, or is it smack in the middle.
00:12:09.690 --> 00:12:16.590 Dr Jennie Byrne: where you really have all 3 happening at the same time? So that's how those 3 terms to me intersect
00:12:16.870 --> 00:12:23.510 Dr Jennie Byrne: in a Venn diagram. And then some of the other terms you mentioned are.
00:12:24.160 --> 00:12:44.409 Dr Jennie Byrne: I don't want to say I don't want to confuse people, but they're basically normal. So like stress is normal. Your body is designed, you know, if you geek out on the neuroscience and the physiology, you know, we have a parasympathetic nervous system. We have a sympathetic nervous system. When the lion jumps out at you from the forest.
00:12:44.630 --> 00:12:59.299 Dr Jennie Byrne: you don't want to just be all calm and relaxed and chill, and just sit there. No, you want your sympathetic nervous system to kick into overdrive so that you can either get the heck out or fight the lion, the fight or flight. So stress is neither good nor bad.
00:12:59.710 --> 00:13:07.950 Dr Jennie Byrne: It just is a normal human physiological event, however, it can be triggered in error.
00:13:08.540 --> 00:13:15.720 Dr Jennie Byrne: So when the lion jumps out at you, yeah, you better get going and get that sympathetic. But when you get an email from your boss
00:13:16.090 --> 00:13:20.849 Dr Jennie Byrne: you probably don't need to have that reaction that you did for the line, but you may feel
00:13:21.020 --> 00:13:25.390 Dr Jennie Byrne: the same as if a lion just jumped out at you. And I've received some emails like that myself.
00:13:26.380 --> 00:13:32.059 Dr Jennie Byrne: The compassion, fatigue is also a normal human event. So
00:13:32.300 --> 00:13:45.109 Dr Jennie Byrne: our ability to be compassionate, which is a type of empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand what's or imagine what somebody else is going through. Compassion is a type of empathy where you're actually
00:13:45.350 --> 00:13:50.140 Dr Jennie Byrne: actively engaged in some emotional exchange which compels you to take action.
00:13:50.930 --> 00:13:57.530 Dr Jennie Byrne: It is normal for humans to have a limited amount of that. If you're sick you're going to have less.
00:13:57.640 --> 00:14:17.589 Dr Jennie Byrne: If you're having a great day and a big check just went in the bank, and your kids are happy, you're going to have more. So it varies from day to day, and some people just inherently have more of a store of it than others. So, for example, for me to do psychotherapy with patients, I love it. I can't really do more than an hour or 2 a day.
00:14:17.850 --> 00:14:22.769 Dr Jennie Byrne: I'm pretty drained at that point. I can do medication titration all day long.
00:14:22.880 --> 00:14:28.740 Dr Jennie Byrne: but the psychotherapy drains me where somebody else might be able to do it 10 HA day and not get drained. So there's like
00:14:29.170 --> 00:14:36.470 Dr Jennie Byrne: different amounts per person, and then also it varies from day to day or time to time. So those are some of the terms
00:14:36.670 --> 00:14:38.359 Dr Jennie Byrne: I would think about like
00:14:38.790 --> 00:14:45.299 Dr Jennie Byrne: normal and and less normal. So there's a lot of things that are actually pretty normal to human brains and bodies.
00:14:45.460 --> 00:15:09.151 Mira Brancu: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good way to to tease it apart. And actually, compassion, fatigue. I see that as and I think there's been some research on this, too, or literature around the connection between that and burnout, like there are people who are susceptible to burnout as a result of compassion, fatigue, and they might look about the same, you know, and
00:15:09.950 --> 00:15:16.630 Mira Brancu: and then there's organizational trauma which I would put under Ptsd, right like you mentioned.
00:15:17.114 --> 00:15:41.710 Mira Brancu: You can have Ptsd from a single or several personal events that have happened to you, but you could also have national level trauma, and you could have organizational level trauma all together, a reaction to the things that have happened to you, the difference that I'm hearing that you've mentioned with all of these, and in terms of like teasing out moral injury.
00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:45.390 Mira Brancu: Is that this piece about
00:15:45.935 --> 00:15:51.709 Mira Brancu: did it only happen to you, or were you sucked into being part of it.
00:15:51.890 --> 00:16:00.420 Mira Brancu: And that is what I'm hearing, as like a a big kind of like differentiating factor.
00:16:00.530 --> 00:16:01.740 Mira Brancu: Does that sound right?
00:16:01.940 --> 00:16:09.600 Dr Jennie Byrne: I think that's a great way to describe it. Yes, that moral injury is something that you are either doing. You're part of. You can't stop it. It's
00:16:09.820 --> 00:16:15.209 Dr Jennie Byrne: and and it's something that goes deeply against what you believe in as opposed to like
00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:27.930 Dr Jennie Byrne: a toxic workplace where maybe it feels very external. And it's just coming at you right? But you're not really doing things that you feel like you're contributing to the toxic environment.
00:16:28.120 --> 00:16:38.529 Mira Brancu: Yeah, excellent, super interesting. We are nearing an ad break. So when we come back from the ad break, we'll take that from like definition to
00:16:38.570 --> 00:17:06.069 Mira Brancu: what does it, you know, look like, what do we do about it? Right? So you're listening to the hard skills with me, Dr. Mira Branco and our guest today, Dr. Jenny Byrne, author of Moral Injury, Healing the healers we air on Tuesdays at 5 Pm. Eastern time. At that time you can find us like right now live. If you're listening, you can find us on Linkedin or Youtube, several other locations@talkradio.nyc. Otherwise we'll be right back with our guest in just a moment.
00:18:52.710 --> 00:19:03.479 Mira Brancu: Welcome back to the hard skills with me, Dr. Mira Branco and our guest today, Dr. Jenny Byrne. So we just got done sort of understanding what moral injury is.
00:19:04.095 --> 00:19:24.979 Mira Brancu: As different from other sort of potentially overlapping experiences like Burnout or Ptsd. Now, your book, which I really enjoyed, by the way goes beyond just talking about moral injury. It actually serves as kind of a commentary on our current healthcare system.
00:19:25.120 --> 00:19:26.120 Mira Brancu: So
00:19:26.330 --> 00:19:36.560 Mira Brancu: let's talk more about that. What do you see is creating or perpetuating the challenges that are leading to the experiences that you're seeing around moral injury.
00:19:38.390 --> 00:19:39.860 Dr Jennie Byrne: Yeah, the
00:19:40.510 --> 00:19:56.110 Dr Jennie Byrne: I think there, there's like no short answer to it. But I would say that through my interviews and my research a couple of themes have emerged about how this is is happened like, why is this happening? And why does it seem to not be improving?
00:19:56.300 --> 00:20:00.079 Dr Jennie Byrne: In fact, I would say, it's it's kind of rapidly escalating.
00:20:00.080 --> 00:20:00.610 Mira Brancu: Hmm.
00:20:01.160 --> 00:20:05.720 Dr Jennie Byrne: Amongst clinicians again. They don't. They say these things behind closed doors.
00:20:05.830 --> 00:20:22.969 Dr Jennie Byrne: but you may have noticed I don't know. I mean, I'm a patient. Most of us are a patient. You may have noticed doctors are turning over faster. Somebody retired, and you're like, Wait a minute. They're only like 50, and they just retired. That's a little bit weird. Or you may have noticed some things in your own ecosystem. Yeah.
00:20:22.970 --> 00:20:28.680 Mira Brancu: We've noticed, you know, just our doctors cutting their hours. Now. I only work 3 days. Now I work.
00:20:28.800 --> 00:20:34.829 Mira Brancu: you know, fewer hours, and we're like worried for our own doctors, you know.
00:20:35.180 --> 00:21:01.718 Dr Jennie Byrne: Yeah. And honestly, you should be. And and part of the healing process I can talk about in a little bit is like what you as an everyday non clinician can do to actually to make things better and to help heal. I can share that, too. But here's you know, there's a couple trends of like. Why, we've gotten to this place, and it feels like it happened all of a sudden. But if we really look back, the signs have been there for a while. So
00:21:02.180 --> 00:21:03.665 Dr Jennie Byrne: 1st of all,
00:21:04.350 --> 00:21:30.109 Dr Jennie Byrne: The complexity of health, care and medicine has exploded, and I like to tell the story of. I have one doctor in my family was my maternal grandfather. He was a pediatrician in Central Pennsylvania, in Post World War 2 times, and when he died. I actually got all of his doctor Gear, and I have his little black bag, and if you look in his little back bag.
00:21:30.270 --> 00:21:33.079 Dr Jennie Byrne: the universe of treatment was in his bag.
00:21:33.190 --> 00:21:40.020 Dr Jennie Byrne: and he had little vials of chemicals, a little notepad of like recipes to make medicines, a syringe.
00:21:40.020 --> 00:21:40.460 Mira Brancu: Wow!
00:21:40.460 --> 00:21:50.219 Dr Jennie Byrne: You know, and like back then, and that's a long time ago, but not that long ago, right? Like less than a hundred years ago the universe of medicine fit in his black bag.
00:21:50.440 --> 00:22:03.819 Dr Jennie Byrne: and he could go out into the countryside and see people in homes and take care of them with his little back bag. I mean, just think about that for a second. And now imagine, if you have kids, your pediatric practice, and
00:22:04.070 --> 00:22:22.549 Dr Jennie Byrne: all of the different pediatric specialties, and the different medicines, and the treatments, and the screenings and the vaccines, which are, I know, now, controversial and just. Just imagine the complexity of that. So the sheer complexity of healthcare and medicine has grown to the fact, where, like one human brain is actually not capable of understanding all of it.
00:22:24.112 --> 00:22:45.740 Dr Jennie Byrne: When I was in training in med school in the nineties. I had this feeling like, if I just studied hard enough, maybe I could kind of know everything probably couldn't. But like I had the feeling like it was within my grasp. Now it is completely, not within my grasp. I mean, it's literally not humanly possible. So that has happened. And that has happened worldwide.
00:22:46.230 --> 00:22:50.740 Dr Jennie Byrne: The second thing that has happened is the industrialization of medicine
00:22:51.603 --> 00:23:04.949 Dr Jennie Byrne: which has followed the industrialization of other industries. So you know, my 1st book actually talked a little bit more about the Ford factory floor, and how we evolved into our current corporate culture. Right? Came from Ford. It didn't.
00:23:04.950 --> 00:23:05.300 Mira Brancu: To be.
00:23:05.300 --> 00:23:17.079 Dr Jennie Byrne: Like that before. Word. So medicine followed a little later. So medicine now feels like a factory floor, and if you talk to clinicians and interview them pretty much. Every single person I interviewed said the same thing.
00:23:17.250 --> 00:23:20.209 Dr Jennie Byrne: which is, I don't want to feel like a cog in a machine.
00:23:21.510 --> 00:23:32.949 Dr Jennie Byrne: Healing is not a machine process. It is an organic process. They feel like they are on an assembly line. And if you're a patient like me and you go to the doctor, and you're put in little rooms
00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:41.050 Dr Jennie Byrne: and little widgets. Come and do things to you. You feel like part of a machine, too. I don't like that personally, maybe some people do so
00:23:41.450 --> 00:23:53.160 Dr Jennie Byrne: highly industrialized, which means operationalized. So medicine has become very operationalized, and when you lean on, there's nothing wrong with operations. But when you lean on operations.
00:23:53.310 --> 00:23:59.940 Dr Jennie Byrne: typically, you're not thinking about emotional content or human experience, it's much more about operations.
00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:08.079 Dr Jennie Byrne: So that's the second thing that's happened. And then the 3rd thing that has happened more recently, I'd say in the last 10 years is
00:24:08.280 --> 00:24:15.480 Dr Jennie Byrne: the role of a clinician or a doctor in society has really changed, and part of that was the political climate
00:24:15.660 --> 00:24:34.589 Dr Jennie Byrne: of what happened. And then the pandemic happened, and it really just got out of control. So you know, you used to have as a physician like for me when I went to training. I never thought I would be like the richest person in the world. I was like, Yeah, I'll have enough money. I'll do okay, right? Like, I'm not going to be broke. I'll be okay. But I will be respected.
00:24:35.100 --> 00:24:48.509 Dr Jennie Byrne: I will be a respected person. My family will respect me, my community will respect me, people will call me doctor, I will have respect and trust, and I will earn that trust, and I will work very hard, very hard, sometimes too hard
00:24:48.700 --> 00:24:52.970 Dr Jennie Byrne: to to be that trusted person, so that actually has eroded.
00:24:52.970 --> 00:24:53.570 Mira Brancu: Yeah.
00:24:53.570 --> 00:24:59.059 Dr Jennie Byrne: And changed, and a lot of clinicians feel like they are no longer even respect. They don't even get respected.
00:24:59.700 --> 00:25:14.100 Dr Jennie Byrne: And then, in the worst case scenario, at the worst of the pandemic. They were actually being attacked and yelled at all day long for trying to save people, and you can imagine, like, what kind of like wound that leaves. So
00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:22.000 Dr Jennie Byrne: those are a couple of the trends of like, why, we're kind of where we're at today. And people assume. It's just in the Us. And that's actually not true at all.
00:25:22.461 --> 00:25:32.380 Dr Jennie Byrne: It's you can have socialized medicine, cash, medicine, whatever you want. People are feeling the same way everywhere in the world. So it's actually not just the Us. That's a bit of a myth.
00:25:32.380 --> 00:25:41.250 Mira Brancu: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. The other thing I remember from your book that I found really fascinating, and it really stuck with me is how you sort of explained
00:25:42.540 --> 00:25:46.840 Mira Brancu: how many people you have to squeeze into an hour in order to make.
00:25:47.280 --> 00:25:55.020 Mira Brancu: you know, like break even versus make some small profit. I'd love for you to share a little bit more about it like how that fits into all of this.
00:25:55.020 --> 00:26:07.830 Dr Jennie Byrne: Yeah, and I'm a pragmatist. So I'll just give you some examples. So you know, when I had my psychiatry practice, for example, you know, psychiatrist is a specialist. We're not typically paid great. I mean, we're paid better than primary care. But we're not. Typically, you know.
00:26:08.080 --> 00:26:17.590 Dr Jennie Byrne: the bazillionaire. So just as an example. So when I had my practice you know, a psychiatrist could expect to make between probably
00:26:17.930 --> 00:26:20.489 Dr Jennie Byrne: a hundred to $200 an hour.
00:26:21.280 --> 00:26:27.569 Dr Jennie Byrne: So if I had a physician in my practice, I should expect to pay them a hundred to $200 an hour, right?
00:26:28.211 --> 00:26:37.358 Dr Jennie Byrne: Not including all the fringe and all the other things they need, or time off or just basic, you know 100 200. So insurance companies
00:26:37.940 --> 00:26:47.650 Dr Jennie Byrne: would contract with me and say, Okay, Jenny, we will pay you every visit you do with a patient. You will get $70.
00:26:48.940 --> 00:27:06.559 Dr Jennie Byrne: Okay, so how many visits do I have to do per hour. $70 to pay that doctor all my overhead, all my staff, all my everything. 2. Okay, that's a hundred $40. The physician might want 200. Now, that's not even a break, even. Okay, 3, 2, 10,
00:27:06.950 --> 00:27:18.360 Dr Jennie Byrne: probably. Still not break, even when all my operational. Okay, maybe 4 4 visits. Now, I'm up to 2 80. Okay, I'm getting closer to break. Even so, basically for that physician
00:27:18.700 --> 00:27:27.970 Dr Jennie Byrne: to be able to bring in enough revenue from insurance to pay for their salary. They probably need to do 5, 6, 7 appointments an hour.
00:27:28.560 --> 00:27:29.090 Dr Jennie Byrne: so.
00:27:29.090 --> 00:27:31.481 Mira Brancu: Which is staggering in most.
00:27:32.300 --> 00:27:35.250 Mira Brancu: You know, most patients are unhappy, not being.
00:27:35.360 --> 00:27:57.210 Mira Brancu: you know, like able to spend time with their doctors, and most doctors are unhappy, not being able to spend as much time with their patients. And for those of you out there who are thinking, wow! 100 to $200 an hour is a lot. Just remember that doctors also come with like boatloads of loans that they had to go through. You know.
00:27:57.210 --> 00:28:15.069 Dr Jennie Byrne: The average right now, just for some context. So the average time post undergrad that a physician will spend in training is a minimum of 7 years post undergraduate. So you are. If you go straight through college, come out 21. You're basically
00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:19.300 Dr Jennie Byrne: 30 before you have any paid employment.
00:28:20.250 --> 00:28:22.460 Dr Jennie Byrne: Okay? So you have lost
00:28:22.870 --> 00:28:42.390 Dr Jennie Byrne: 10 years of wages. 10 years of 401 ks, 10 years, and plus you're working your butt off. You're working like crazy, crazy hours. So 1st of all, I did not understand that when I started, the second thing is debt. So most medical students are coming around $300,000 to a million dollars in debt.
00:28:43.306 --> 00:28:45.940 Dr Jennie Byrne: When they come out of school. So
00:28:46.210 --> 00:28:48.470 Dr Jennie Byrne: yes, a hundred to 200 is
00:28:49.040 --> 00:29:09.499 Dr Jennie Byrne: good money. I'm not going to lie, but these are the most highly trained specialists in our country. I mean the amount of money that goes into educating us, and the amount of time we put in the effort all I mean, I could go on and on about what it takes to come out on the other end of that.
00:29:09.840 --> 00:29:17.309 Dr Jennie Byrne: I mean, these are basically the highest trained specialists that you have across most disciplines in this country or in the in internationally. So.
00:29:17.310 --> 00:29:17.960 Mira Brancu: Yeah.
00:29:17.960 --> 00:29:22.989 Dr Jennie Byrne: Put it in a little context, I think. And it's also about expectations.
00:29:23.140 --> 00:29:25.640 Dr Jennie Byrne: You know, when you are a Med student.
00:29:25.860 --> 00:29:29.959 Dr Jennie Byrne: you don't expect to come out of school and be buried in debt until you're 50.
00:29:30.180 --> 00:29:31.129 Dr Jennie Byrne: Right? Like I.
00:29:31.130 --> 00:29:37.150 Dr Jennie Byrne: I just paid my student. I'm very open about all of this. I just paid my students own my loans off last year at 51.
00:29:37.910 --> 00:29:38.670 Mira Brancu: Yeah.
00:29:39.580 --> 00:29:46.070 Dr Jennie Byrne: Like, I have kids going to. I had basically 6 month gap between my loans being paid off and the kids going into college.
00:29:46.070 --> 00:29:46.899 Mira Brancu: Oh, my God!
00:29:46.900 --> 00:29:53.669 Dr Jennie Byrne: So again, I'm not saying that to say, Oh, woe is me! But I'm just trying to give some context for like why they feel this way.
00:29:53.670 --> 00:29:55.962 Mira Brancu: Right? Right? Yeah. Yeah. So
00:29:57.790 --> 00:30:13.050 Mira Brancu: all of that is adding, like, you know, compounding the experience of medical, you know, professionals, physicians, and healthcare within the healthcare system right now. We're reaching outbreak when we come back.
00:30:13.484 --> 00:30:32.320 Mira Brancu: I'd love to sort of get into this other interesting idea that you had in your book around medical empathy. Yeah, and how that connects to moral injury. So you're listening to the hard skills with me. Dr. Mira Branku and our guest today, Dr. Jenny Byrne, author of Moral Injury, healing the healers, and we will be right back in just a moment.
00:32:04.090 --> 00:32:23.310 Mira Brancu: Welcome welcome back to the hard skills. So we've been talking about moral injury. We've had the definitions, some examples of how we get there. I want to touch very quickly on this interesting idea of medical empathy and how it connects. And then I want to move into
00:32:23.760 --> 00:32:37.079 Mira Brancu: kind of the the kind of stages of moral injury and the healing process. The the stages I find very interesting because you you don't just like go from. I don't have it. I have it.
00:32:37.210 --> 00:32:43.460 Mira Brancu: I thought that was really interesting. So, but before we get there, medical empathy, what is that? And how does that connect.
00:32:50.310 --> 00:33:12.249 Dr Jennie Byrne: Sorry. Empathy is a really fascinating topic, and one of the interesting things is that there is a biology underlying empathy. So I'm not. I think this is part you're referring to in the book. So healing between a clinician or another type of healer and a patient or a client or a person
00:33:12.780 --> 00:33:22.679 Dr Jennie Byrne: involves not only a competent type of assessment and treatment plan and so forth. There's actually a biological connection between human beings which is healing.
00:33:23.310 --> 00:33:27.550 Dr Jennie Byrne: And if you think back again into history, that concept is
00:33:27.730 --> 00:33:39.460 Dr Jennie Byrne: is not foreign at all. I mean, that's been the predominant model of healing over the era. You know, ethics has been, you know, human beings heal each other and sometimes healing is not doing.
00:33:39.710 --> 00:33:41.060 Dr Jennie Byrne: It's being.
00:33:41.060 --> 00:33:42.050 Mira Brancu: Hmm.
00:33:42.050 --> 00:33:50.270 Dr Jennie Byrne: Right. And psychotherapists, if there's anyone listening, know this very well. Sometimes the role of medical empathy is to bear witness.
00:33:50.270 --> 00:33:51.000 Mira Brancu: Hmm.
00:33:52.510 --> 00:33:58.300 Dr Jennie Byrne: And in the highly industrialized, operationalized world of medicine.
00:33:58.630 --> 00:34:24.760 Dr Jennie Byrne: I think that is what we feel is missing often is the sense of human connection. And if you want to geek out into the neuroscience, there's actually research that shows when human beings are in sync with one another, their brainwaves synchronize. And there was a study not that long ago which I thought was great about psychotherapists and their clients or patients. And they did Eeg recordings. And when those 2 were synced up.
00:34:25.219 --> 00:34:31.479 Dr Jennie Byrne: meaning they were in good rapport, they were empathetic. They were really in the flow, their brainwaves synced up.
00:34:32.320 --> 00:34:37.610 Mira Brancu: Which is where you know. Hey? We're on the same wavelength probably comes from right and.
00:34:37.940 --> 00:34:38.500 Dr Jennie Byrne: Right.
00:34:38.500 --> 00:34:41.650 Mira Brancu: I don't wanna throw us off track here, but like
00:34:42.189 --> 00:34:50.920 Mira Brancu: because we talk a lot about team development on the show right? And we talk about like working in remote and hybrid environments. This is
00:34:51.100 --> 00:34:54.870 Mira Brancu: probably what is also leading to the degradation of
00:34:55.310 --> 00:34:58.009 Mira Brancu: teams and teaming is that we're
00:34:58.410 --> 00:35:09.180 Mira Brancu: when you are pre. Even if you're present with your team in the same amount of time, you're not receiving that human connection in that way. Right.
00:35:09.600 --> 00:35:21.769 Dr Jennie Byrne: I think. Yes and no. I mean, I think yes, we're missing the biological proximity and the electromagnetic waves. You know all sorts of stuff we don't know about. So we're missing out definitely. But
00:35:22.020 --> 00:35:27.729 Dr Jennie Byrne: what's also interesting that is, in a virtual space. You can also be in sync and.
00:35:27.730 --> 00:35:28.770 Mira Brancu: Oh, how interesting!
00:35:28.770 --> 00:35:29.490 Dr Jennie Byrne: Yeah.
00:35:30.110 --> 00:35:44.319 Dr Jennie Byrne: And a good example of that is storytelling. So when you look at storytellers who are telling a story, and you have a listener. The same parts of their brains will activate when you're really telling a good story.
00:35:44.670 --> 00:35:49.919 Dr Jennie Byrne: And that story could be told at the same time synchronously, asynchronously. I'm a big.
00:35:50.150 --> 00:35:55.760 Dr Jennie Byrne: a reader. I'm a big book, reader. I I believe that I feel in sync with someone who wrote a book.
00:35:56.030 --> 00:36:04.560 Dr Jennie Byrne: You know, hundreds of years ago when I read that book. So human connection isn't all an in-person phenomenon, and that's what to me is fascinating about
00:36:04.980 --> 00:36:06.650 Dr Jennie Byrne: ways of working.
00:36:06.980 --> 00:36:13.730 Dr Jennie Byrne: And and for some people. Again, people have different biologies, and for some people the biology of being physically present
00:36:13.880 --> 00:36:16.080 Dr Jennie Byrne: is actually very hard on their body.
00:36:16.080 --> 00:36:16.790 Mira Brancu: Hmm.
00:36:16.790 --> 00:36:32.709 Dr Jennie Byrne: Whereas other people thrive on that. And so there's a lot of like human physiology that differs from person to person. So one person might feel more in sync in person, and another person might feel more disconnected because they're actually physiologically, not in sync. If that makes sense.
00:36:32.710 --> 00:36:55.910 Mira Brancu: That is fascinating, Jenny, absolutely fascinating. I might need to like, have another episode just on this. But I'm going to get us back on track. Okay? So let's talk about like the stages. You don't just go from 0 to 100 with moral injury in your book you talked about, I think 6 stages 5 stages.
00:36:56.140 --> 00:36:57.370 Mira Brancu: or it's a big.
00:36:57.370 --> 00:37:00.699 Dr Jennie Byrne: About it. Well, I I wanted a good mental model, so.
00:37:00.700 --> 00:37:01.030 Mira Brancu: Yeah.
00:37:01.030 --> 00:37:07.270 Dr Jennie Byrne: The mental model of pressure wounds, because we are taught in medical school and nursing school to like
00:37:07.400 --> 00:37:35.950 Dr Jennie Byrne: to stage a wound. So we're taught. Okay, this is a 1, 2, 3, 4. So that so so I like that mental model. And I think it. Even if you're not a clinician, you can kind of understand, you know, a level. One stage one wound is like, Oh, I I banged into something, or I maybe lightly burned my skin, and it's kind of red and irritated, and surface is not broken. If I leave it alone and clean it, it'll probably be fine right? That's like a stage one
00:37:36.250 --> 00:37:53.780 Dr Jennie Byrne: stage 2 is like, Oh, no, I cut myself. It went past the surface. It's going to take a little while to heal that up. Maybe I need a band aid. Maybe I need a little neosporin. Maybe it'll heal on its own if I keep it kind, you know. It's like a little bit more. You might need some environmental supports.
00:37:54.160 --> 00:37:56.590 Dr Jennie Byrne: In other words, to let that heal up.
00:37:57.040 --> 00:38:15.960 Dr Jennie Byrne: Then you get into stage 3 pressure wound. Now, things are getting kind of ugly, you know. Now you're down into some tissue. Maybe pussy things are just not probably going to heal on their own. You probably need some stitches you probably need. Maybe you have to have antibiotics like you need some external supports and treatments for that.
00:38:16.230 --> 00:38:39.559 Dr Jennie Byrne: A stage 4 pressure wound, if you've ever seen one, and had the misfortune to see one. They're awful. You never forget one once you've seen them. They're all the way down. Sometimes Bone is showing they're putrid. They're not going to heal. It's really quite awful. And so the way I compare that to moral injury. I think the stage one is the like fatigue.
00:38:39.740 --> 00:38:42.600 Dr Jennie Byrne: you know. Light burnout, fatigue.
00:38:43.221 --> 00:39:06.290 Dr Jennie Byrne: You know. Give it a break. Come back fresh. You'll probably be okay as long as you're healthy and things are okay. Stage 2 is like, Oh, I think I need some environmental support. So I think I need my boss to change. You know how the schedule works. I think I need a new assistant to help me here. I might need some technology. I need a little support to make this work.
00:39:06.910 --> 00:39:18.110 Dr Jennie Byrne: Then you get down into the ugly parts which are the 3 and the 4. The 3 is really where you need this. And this is what I know you focus on, like the organization. The leadership needs to really step in.
00:39:18.230 --> 00:39:24.799 Dr Jennie Byrne: You're not going to heal on your own. The leadership needs to be involved. And then the stage 4 is unfortunately, when they come to me
00:39:25.080 --> 00:39:44.820 Dr Jennie Byrne: as a psychiatrist, either externalizing it by being aggressive or destructive, or more commonly internalizing it, and being self-destructive to the point where they may even be suicidal using drugs. And that's when I get involved. Often as a psychiatrist, when things have gotten really really bad.
00:39:45.090 --> 00:39:47.306 Mira Brancu: Can you give me an example of like
00:39:48.832 --> 00:39:58.080 Mira Brancu: How how these stages occur like is it in the same environment? Is it dependent on environment? Is it sort of like a
00:39:59.860 --> 00:40:05.530 Mira Brancu: specific event like, how do you end up at different stages?
00:40:06.260 --> 00:40:28.419 Dr Jennie Byrne: I would. Yeah, think about. I would encourage people to think about like your human body. So like, you can kind of intuitively understand that if you're young you're 25. You're pretty healthy. You don't have any health conditions. You don't take any medicines. Life is pretty good. You don't find, you know, everything's pretty good, and you get an injury a burn. You're going to heal up right? Like it's okay.
00:40:28.420 --> 00:40:51.959 Dr Jennie Byrne: But that same burn on a 95 year old lady who is on 20 medications and immunocompromised, may have cancer, who husband just died, who, you know, like that same little burn may go all the way quickly to a stage 3 or 4 for that little lady, whereas for that healthy 25 year old may be no big deal. So the underlying individual situation
00:40:52.180 --> 00:40:54.070 Dr Jennie Byrne: and the environment they're in
00:40:54.310 --> 00:41:00.029 Dr Jennie Byrne: will often determine whether something progresses from the burnout down into the moral injury right.
00:41:00.030 --> 00:41:02.829 Mira Brancu: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so I can imagine.
00:41:03.130 --> 00:41:09.863 Mira Brancu: For you know, one example could be, I've been working in this system for 30 years and
00:41:10.520 --> 00:41:22.561 Mira Brancu: I keep being asked to do more with less, and I'm now starting to feel like I'm compromising on patient care, and this is upsetting me to a point where it's
00:41:23.100 --> 00:41:30.052 Mira Brancu: you know. I'm starting to take it out on my family. I'm starting to get more irritable. I'm starting to yell at people at work. I'm
00:41:30.500 --> 00:41:41.740 Mira Brancu: starting to wonder what is the point of me ever even being a physician? In the 1st place, does that sound like kind of a like stage 2 to 3. Kind of.
00:41:41.740 --> 00:41:49.060 Dr Jennie Byrne: That's heading into 3, and if that person doesn't get support of some kind it could go into 4.
00:41:49.250 --> 00:42:01.930 Mira Brancu: Yeah, yeah. You know, I think a lot about this, when when I talk about the stress distress impairment continuum of burnout, which is like stress is the normal thing. Right? Distress is when
00:42:02.170 --> 00:42:09.969 Mira Brancu: you're getting signals, your body is saying, Hello, there's a problem, and you have a choice whether you attend to it or not.
00:42:10.100 --> 00:42:12.209 Dr Jennie Byrne: In moral injury. It sounds like.
00:42:12.380 --> 00:42:36.039 Mira Brancu: You don't have the choice to attend to it or not. You're often like, Okay, you know. I guess I got to do this, and so you don't attend to it, and you don't attend to it, and your body's screaming, and your mind is screaming, and your soul is screaming, and then, eventually is where the impairment happens, where you're not even noticing what's happened to you. But you know there's a really big problem. And then that's how they kind of end up
00:42:36.220 --> 00:42:46.580 Mira Brancu: at your door, where their life has changed to a point where they almost don't recognize themselves or they don't. They've lost themselves in some way does that sound kind of accurate.
00:42:46.790 --> 00:42:48.840 Dr Jennie Byrne: Yeah. And that's why, again, the
00:42:49.100 --> 00:43:07.719 Dr Jennie Byrne: the reason for me to publish the book and to use the terminology is so that people, the 1st step of the healing is to start to understand what you're feeling. So most people feel bad inside, and they have no idea what it's called or what's happening to them. And the culture in healthcare in particular, is very stoic like you don't talk about it.
00:43:08.460 --> 00:43:22.729 Dr Jennie Byrne: Something's wrong, and you and everybody feels like it's something's wrong with them, and nobody else is going through this except for them. It's their fault, and the burnout conversation unfortunately reinforces that, I think, because it says, Oh, you should take a vacation and do some yoga, and you should be just fine.
00:43:23.479 --> 00:43:40.620 Dr Jennie Byrne: So so the 1st healing step is actually having the right words to understand the emotions and the feelings that you have inside. And for some people just that actually can kind of help them heal those stages of wounds, even just knowing what it is, sometimes provides a lot of relief.
00:43:40.960 --> 00:44:00.940 Mira Brancu: Awesome. You just said the magic word, how do we heal? And we're reaching an ad break. So when we come back from the ad break. I would love to hear your thoughts about that healing process. What it looks like, what people can, you know, do at different stages. You're listening to the hard skills with me. Dr. Mira Branco and our guest today, Dr. Jenny Bird.
00:44:00.940 --> 00:44:17.030 Mira Brancu: author of Moral Injury, Healing the healers we air on Tuesdays at 5 Pm, eastern, you can catch us on Linkedin and Youtube while we're streaming right now or otherwise. Catch us@talkradio.nyc, later on and on podcasts. And we'll be right back in just a moment.
00:45:57.600 --> 00:46:05.179 Mira Brancu: Welcome back to the hard skills with me. Dr. Mira Branku and our guest today, Dr. Jenny Byrne. So we are
00:46:06.070 --> 00:46:11.059 Mira Brancu: nearing the sort of closing of our talk
00:46:11.250 --> 00:46:20.339 Mira Brancu: with a focus on now what we've defined it, we've explored it. We've looked into kind of what it looks like at different stages.
00:46:20.820 --> 00:46:25.869 Mira Brancu: How can people heal from moral injury? What does it look like at different stages?
00:46:25.990 --> 00:46:26.996 Mira Brancu: You know.
00:46:27.990 --> 00:46:29.229 Mira Brancu: What do you see?
00:46:30.270 --> 00:46:58.550 Dr Jennie Byrne: So the good news is that you know the work in the military has actually shown us some of the ways to heal from moral injury. So we actually do have kind of a guidebook of how to do that. As I mentioned before, the break, the 1st thing is knowing what it is so giving voice and normalizing the experience. And this is where I know you have a lot of leaders and managers listening on the call. This is where you really play an important role, to like, create a space and a normalization of like what people are feeling.
00:46:58.550 --> 00:46:59.000 Mira Brancu: Hmm.
00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:23.310 Dr Jennie Byrne: And again, I think as a leader, I've done this myself, you know, you want to fix the problem. And sometimes it's not fixing the problem. It's just giving voice to it and letting people share their experiences sometimes. That's the 1st thing so telling stories I mentioned earlier is what human beings do really well at you can show statistics that's helpful, but telling stories. And so
00:47:23.800 --> 00:47:30.250 Dr Jennie Byrne: part of what I did in the book was, people told me these very vulnerable stories. And then I would get these emails later. And they'd say.
00:47:30.330 --> 00:47:37.940 Dr Jennie Byrne: Jenny, I you know I never told anybody that story. I can't believe I just told you that on the interview, and you know what I felt so much better after I told you that story.
00:47:38.000 --> 00:48:01.299 Dr Jennie Byrne: So just the sharing. And so I challenged myself writing the book to share my stories that were really vulnerable, right like, Walk the walk. And I was like, I'm going to do it. And then and then I was like, you know what? I'm going to take a vulnerable story. I'm going to put it in Chapter One. I'm going to put it at the beginning and that way everyone is going to see my worst story, and that is extremely vulnerable, and I'm going to see if I feel better.
00:48:01.390 --> 00:48:14.709 Dr Jennie Byrne: and I can tell you I even still a little scary. I do feel better putting that in the world and sharing that. And people have told me after that. Oh, my God! You told that story! The same thing happened to me. I never knew that happened so
00:48:14.820 --> 00:48:19.299 Dr Jennie Byrne: telling stories, and as a leader. It's hard to strike the balance of being vulnerable.
00:48:19.540 --> 00:48:26.260 Dr Jennie Byrne: I think, with your team, and then still making them feel supported. So I know that's a big challenge. I'm sure you help people with that.
00:48:26.720 --> 00:48:46.250 Dr Jennie Byrne: So telling stories is very powerful. The next level is really more. These environmental shifts and so creating safe spaces is a big 1st step, and sometimes you can't. Some workplaces actually are kind of too toxic. And you can't. So, having another venue outside of your work where it is safe.
00:48:46.510 --> 00:48:52.289 Dr Jennie Byrne: Whether that's with colleagues, friends, you know, for physicians, people you went to Med school with
00:48:52.490 --> 00:49:05.550 Dr Jennie Byrne: a professional society like having a safe space is really important. And if you can't get it at your work, that's okay. Not every workplace is going to be safe. You might have to go. And there are people out there who are very happy to help you create those spaces.
00:49:06.235 --> 00:49:10.259 Dr Jennie Byrne: The other part is then at the leadership in the systems level
00:49:10.290 --> 00:49:36.920 Dr Jennie Byrne: kind of reimagining the healthcare experience. And that's kind of what I do for my advisory work. And that's like, how do we challenge assumptions we have? And there's a lot of new tools coming around AI and technology which I am personally quite excited about because they're already making a big improvement on the day to day experience of clinicians and patients. So we're at a moment in time where, if we can challenge the assumptions and be smart
00:49:36.960 --> 00:49:44.350 Dr Jennie Byrne: about how we use trusted technology. I think we're actually at a at a pivot where things could get much better, much faster.
00:49:44.620 --> 00:49:55.940 Dr Jennie Byrne: But the whole point should be the human experience. So the tech is great, only so much that it supports the human. We get carried away with the tech and just want everything to be tech that doesn't actually solve the problem.
00:49:56.495 --> 00:50:01.359 Dr Jennie Byrne: And then I would say, the final, like, the highest level way to heal is kind of a more
00:50:03.350 --> 00:50:28.210 Dr Jennie Byrne: you know more of the National Platform or the thought leadership or folks. I mean, I hope that just even putting a book into the universe has impact. I don't know how many people it'll touch, but I know it'll it's I know it's already touched some people right my clinical work. I know I can touch people that way. So finding meaning in the work and finding a way to have an impact, and I would say in terms of like, Well, how do you do that. I think that.
00:50:29.240 --> 00:50:38.919 Dr Jennie Byrne: And you talked about the virtual workplace. I think small acts of kindness are extraordinarily underrated these days, and I don't know why.
00:50:39.352 --> 00:50:53.869 Dr Jennie Byrne: I have found that by showing up with a good energy and being kind and curious about other people sometimes that's what that is. What's healing, just being kind. And so what does that mean for a patient? Well, when you go to the doctor.
00:50:54.620 --> 00:51:03.289 Dr Jennie Byrne: one simple phrase any of us can use is, if you tell your clinician, your doctor, your nurse, others. Thank you for everything that you do
00:51:05.070 --> 00:51:05.850 Dr Jennie Byrne: takes
00:51:06.020 --> 00:51:13.249 Dr Jennie Byrne: few seconds to say it. Not thank you for what you did for me. That's different. Thank you for all that you do for the world.
00:51:13.500 --> 00:51:16.369 Dr Jennie Byrne: I guarantee you that will feel good.
00:51:16.650 --> 00:51:22.289 Dr Jennie Byrne: That will matter. It may not fix all their problems. If I had 5 people say that to me every day.
00:51:23.130 --> 00:51:28.199 Dr Jennie Byrne: you know that wound may little little tiny wounds that may patch those up
00:51:28.900 --> 00:51:38.130 Dr Jennie Byrne: small acts of kindness. Thank you. You know the virtual workspace has different ways to be kind. We don't open doors for people because we're not in person
00:51:38.440 --> 00:51:42.780 Dr Jennie Byrne: right? But again, I think it's underrated the energy that you bring
00:51:43.020 --> 00:52:01.400 Dr Jennie Byrne: to your work, and it's hard as a leader and a manager like to show up consistently with a really good energy, and also be vulnerable enough to say, Hey, guys, you know, you don't have to worry about it. I'm just letting you know I got some stuff going on at home today. If I'm not 100%, it's nothing that you're doing. I just wanted to let you know.
00:52:01.540 --> 00:52:30.136 Dr Jennie Byrne: or to tell your you know, if you're a manager, you know we have a 1 to one today. I just wanted to let you know I got some stuff going on in the background. I may not be able to be 100 with you. Do you want to reschedule, or would you rather keep it. It's totally up to you. But I just wanted to let you know stuff like that like little phrases. It's hard. It's really hard to have this energy, and then we were joking a little before the show about getting older and and what it takes to kind of keep your mind and body, healthy.
00:52:30.450 --> 00:52:34.619 Dr Jennie Byrne: you know, on a daily basis. And it does. It takes a lot of intention. So
00:52:35.170 --> 00:52:41.210 Dr Jennie Byrne: I think there's like individual things we can do. And then there's like the bigger level things. But we can all
00:52:41.390 --> 00:52:42.969 Dr Jennie Byrne: we can all be kind.
00:52:43.580 --> 00:52:46.529 Dr Jennie Byrne: We can all be kind like it's really not that hard.
00:52:47.200 --> 00:52:52.360 Dr Jennie Byrne: Whatever is going on in you? I guarantee, when you're kind like it does. It does help. It does make you feel better, too.
00:52:53.100 --> 00:53:10.399 Mira Brancu: Absolutely. There's there's a couple of additional examples I'm I'm thinking about as you're talking through this. You know, one is when during Covid. I just remember this one situation where some guy was treating this nurse at the pharmacy. Just awful like
00:53:10.930 --> 00:53:13.110 Mira Brancu: there was. It was something about like
00:53:13.230 --> 00:53:17.149 Mira Brancu: waiting for a long time, or I don't know what it was, and
00:53:17.570 --> 00:53:26.019 Mira Brancu: I came right after him, and I could tell she was frustrated, and I just said, I'm so sorry that you went through that and thank you for everything that you do
00:53:26.160 --> 00:53:40.356 Mira Brancu: right like. That's all it took, you know. I saw like I saw it, and I named it. I didn't keep it to myself, which I could have right. I could have said, oh, what a shame! Or oh, that guy, or whatever right but like name it, you know.
00:53:40.990 --> 00:54:04.429 Mira Brancu: the other is, you know, going back to where you started with all of this, which is like the sort of Ford Assembly line, you know thing. We've taken it to its logical end when it comes to its application to everything and all things, not everything must be a productivity model with hyper efficiency.
00:54:04.480 --> 00:54:17.740 Mira Brancu: bottom line profit. We're starting to move away and back into human centered design. Like we're the humans in all of this right? And so that's a lot of what you're speaking to is
00:54:18.231 --> 00:54:25.478 Mira Brancu: extracting back the human in all of this. How do we bring them back? Because they're there right.
00:54:25.860 --> 00:54:53.670 Dr Jennie Byrne: It's, I like to say, humanism. And when I say humanism, I mean also your physiological, embodied human self. And it's another topic for another day. But the birth rate is declining quite dramatically, and we have less people to be cheap labor across the world. You know. I'm hopeful again, I'm an optimist that we will start to see a reimagining of like. Let's let the robot do the robot stuff. Let's let the humans do the good human stuff right like the robots can do the dumb stuff.
00:54:53.670 --> 00:55:02.869 Mira Brancu: That's right. That's right. Now. If people want to learn more, where can they find you? How can they find out more about your book and everything else that you do. You're speaking, and everything.
00:55:02.870 --> 00:55:12.944 Dr Jennie Byrne: Yeah, best way to reach out to me is I'm on Linkedin. I'm not on other social. So Linkedin connect with me. I keep articles there. This you have my website.
00:55:13.310 --> 00:55:40.240 Dr Jennie Byrne: which is my name? Www. Dr. jennyburn.com. I try to kind of keep an archive of all the content there. The book is on Amazon, where all books are, there is an ebook, paperback and an audio book. So if you like to learn through auditory. It's there, and I think the bottom line is like, whether it's me or somebody else. There are people out here to help you. There are people who would love to help you. You are not alone.
00:55:40.510 --> 00:55:58.790 Dr Jennie Byrne: you know. We are here. You just have to take the step to reach out and start to get curious, and I promise you there are people out here who want to help you so you can reach out to me. I'll try to send you in the right direction. But you really please know you're not alone, and there are people out here to help you.
00:55:59.260 --> 00:56:23.109 Mira Brancu: Thank you so much, Jenny. What did you audience take away from this? Out of everything, all the golden nuggets that she shared? And, more importantly, what's 1 small change you can implement this week, based on what you learned? Is there a colleague out there you've been worried about? Is there? Are you in a position that you can make some changes based on what she shared? Is there something that you need help? With, that you can seek her help with right.
00:56:23.110 --> 00:56:35.499 Mira Brancu: What is one thing that you can do this week to implement, based on what you learned from Jenny, share it with us, or reached out. Linkedin is where you find her, where you find me, and@talkradio.nyc.
00:56:35.520 --> 00:56:41.032 Mira Brancu: so we can, you know, help you support you, cheer you on, we're also located.
00:56:41.500 --> 00:56:52.660 Mira Brancu: the the radio show is on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, twitch, apple spotify Amazon podcasts all over the place. So if today's episode resonated with you, share it with a colleague
00:56:53.050 --> 00:57:04.410 Mira Brancu: and or leave a review. And if you're looking for more personalized support specifically to leadership and team coaching, you could also head to towerscope.com to schedule a consultation.
00:57:04.680 --> 00:57:16.270 Mira Brancu: and you can also check out the Millennials guide to workplace politics or the workbook associated with it as well as our Leadership Academy, a social impact leadership, learning community.
00:57:17.140 --> 00:57:41.220 Mira Brancu: Thank you to talkradio, Dot, Nyc. For hosting. Thank you for joining me on this journey together. We will navigate this space right now, and the complexities of leadership, and emerge stronger on the other side. This is Dr. Mira Branco, signing off, and until next time. Stay steady, stay present. Keep building those hard skills, and reach out to Dr. Jenny Byrne. If you need her support as well.
00:57:41.470 --> 00:57:42.900 Mira Brancu: take care everybody.
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