Why health care professionals must ask, “How am I doing?” [PODCAST]

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We sit down with Perrette St. Preux, a nurse, to explore the realities of work-life balance in health care. We discuss the personal and professional challenges that come with maintaining well-being in a demanding field, the importance of setting boundaries, and strategies for avoiding burnout. Perrette shares powerful insights on how health care professionals can create space to recharge, reconnect, and renew themselves to provide better patient care without sacrificing their health.

Perrette St. Preux is a nurse.

She discusses the KevinMD article, “Work-life balance in health care: Is it a need or a necessity?”

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Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast. Today we welcome Perrette St. Preux. She’s a nurse, and today’s KevinMD article is “Work-life balance in health care: Is it a need or a necessity?” Perrette, welcome to the show.

Perrette St. Preux: Thank you for having me.

Kevin Pho: So let’s start by briefly sharing your story and journey.

Perrette St. Preux: I was born and raised in Haiti, from a family where nobody was in the medical field, but at an early age, I knew that I had to serve in a meaningful way, and I made my way to medical school. I graduated from Notre Dame University. Shortly after, I moved first to the United States, then I went to Canada, where I went back to school to become a registered nurse and earned a master’s degree in public health, with a specialization in health systems and policy.

Working as a nurse with that background in health systems and policy, it helped me to understand so many things, and seeing the suffering of my colleagues, that opened a new path for me to become a writer and also a coach, a life coach, where I help health care workers to create balance in their lives.

Kevin Pho: All right. And when you say that your colleagues, your fellow nurses, are going through a lot of burnout, and you’re a life coach for nurses, tell me some of the stories that you’re hearing from your nurse colleagues.

Perrette St. Preux: Actually, I see so many things. For example, I have colleagues that are on and off all the time. They come, they go into burnout, and after three months, four months, six months, they are back on the job, and you can see them going, and in a couple of months, the same thing will be repeating again. So what I heard is everybody’s tired. Everybody wants change. Everybody wants to see different things, but they are anchored to what called them to that field, the purpose, the passion that they have for it. You can see them crying, but they can’t let go, because the next day they’re going to come back with the same joy and desire to serve, and then the next day again, they’re going to cry. They’re going to feel burned out, exhausted.

So that’s something that really touched me, but I don’t really go that far in the situation, because not only do I have a medical background that helped me to manage my stress, I’m usually somebody who manages my life. I see, with those that I help, the difference in the way they practice, in the way that they approach their job. So that’s why I said, “You know what? I think I’m going to do my best to help the most people that I can to realize that our health, our well-being, is our responsibility.” The moment we take that responsibility, we’re going to see our job differently, and we’re going to be able to manage not only the job, but also our life better, which is what everybody’s looking for.

Kevin Pho: So let’s talk about your KevinMD article, where you delve more into this. It’s titled “Work-life balance in health care: Is it a need or a necessity?” Now, for those who didn’t get a chance to read your article, tell us what it’s about.

Perrette St. Preux: The article is about creating work-life balance. I want to help health care workers in general, nurses, doctors, and whoever is working in health care, to understand that we are talking about wellness. We heard about wellness. We heard that we need to build resilience, but we don’t really hear about balance, and there can’t be wellness, there can’t be resilience, without balance, because balance is the vehicle that helps us to sustain every effort that we are making to be well in our lives. So I want them to hear more about balance.

So in the article, I show them what happened when I was out of balance and the difference that I see in my life and in my environment the moment that I reached balance. Sometimes it takes an event, like the one that I shared in the article, to realize that I’m out of balance and I need to do something. But we don’t have to get there. We don’t have to wait for something to happen to understand the importance of balance in our lives. So the article, for me, is a wake-up call. I want to insist as much as I can, so many people can hear it and we start acting on it, because we are in a crisis of burnout. I believe balance is the solution.

Kevin Pho: So for those who didn’t read your story, just tell us, what was the event that made you realize that you were out of balance?

Perrette St. Preux: I am a single mother, and I was a doctor in my country, so I came to North America, and it was a lot of pressure. Do I want to start over? Do I want to continue in my medical field? So I had to make a choice. It’s a lot of pressure on me. It’s a lot of stress. And then I went to nursing school, again a lot of pressure. So when I started to work as a nurse, that’s when I got separated from my husband. It was new for me to be a single mother. I was in Canada, away from my family, so I had to manage everything, and I realized that I was really stressed.

My job is something that I really cherish. I really love what I’m doing, but I couldn’t do it properly, because I had too much stress in my life. So one night I was with my son, and then I felt a chest pain, what we really call excruciating chest pain, and I know the symptoms. So I grabbed my phone to call 911, and that’s when I realized I have my son in the next room, and I don’t have anybody to call. So with tears in my eyes, I couldn’t even breathe. I was very short of breath, and I said, “God, please, no, not now.” I said, “Not now, please, please.” And then while I was begging and then breathing slowly, I might have fallen asleep.

The next day, I said, “You know what? I need to change something.” At my job, they couldn’t give me a day shift, because I was working the evening shift. So I insisted, I insisted, I insisted. I called HR. I talked to my boss. I said, “I need to do something. I don’t want to leave my job, because this is my passion. This is the only thing in my life that brings me joy, but I need to do something.” So with insistence, finally I got a day shift, and then that’s when I started to work on myself, and I knew that balance was what I needed. And I read books, rars, and everything.

So I did, and I can see the difference when I go do my job every day. No matter what it looks like, my joy is too high for whatever is happening in my job to put me down. So yes, I feel frustrated. Yes, sometimes I’m physically exhausted, but morally, mentally, I am so well that I don’t see anything that can get me out of this field.

Kevin Pho: So you told a story where you had excruciating chest pain, and that made you, of course, realize that your life was out of balance. When you talk to other health care workers, what are other stories that they tell you? What are other symptoms that they tell you that make you realize that, hey, your life is out of balance? What other symptoms are you hearing from them?

Perrette St. Preux: Sometimes you see it live at the job. Usually, I see my co-workers hiding in the bathroom, crying after work. You can see them going in the elevators, everybody’s crying. Other times, you’re going to see them say, “Tomorrow I’m not coming, because I can’t take it no more.” And then you’re going to see them sometimes coming to work in the morning, and their face is puffy, and then they don’t feel like being in the job.

But actually, what I really hear very often is, “I’m exhausted. I can’t take it no more. I need a way out.” I have my sisters and my sister-in-law; they are nurses too. Every day after work, it’s the same thing: “You know what? I need a way out. I need to go back to school to do this or to do that. I need a way out. I can’t take it anymore.” So that’s the thing that I’m hearing more often.

Kevin Pho: And after talking to them, what are some of the reasons that cause them to cry in the elevator or make their life out of balance? What are some of the reasons they tell you?

Perrette St. Preux: It’s the workload, it’s the workload, lack of support, and lack of understanding, and also not being able to have enough time to renew themselves, to recharge, because we need it, but they don’t have enough time.

Kevin Pho: And when you talk to them and you coach them, what are some ways that you’re telling them to try and get their life back in balance again? What are some of your techniques?

Perrette St. Preux: What I did is I developed an approach where I explain what we need to create balance, because we’re talking about three things, in my opinion. We’re talking about wellness, we’re talking about resilience, and we’re talking about balance. So they are not things that you can realize, you can be well. We’re talking about wellness, where we’re spending millions in creating wellness programs, but the wellness, you cannot be well at work if you’re not well at home.

So with my clients or friends, I told them that balance is something that you start from within. It’s an intentional approach. You need to, “What do I want? What do I want? I want to feel well.” We don’t need anything perfect. When we talk about balance, it’s not being extraordinarily well in your life. It is getting to a point where you feel fulfilled, you feel the passion, and you can manage all the aspects of your life.

I say that wellness is all the efforts that we are making to feel well, like eating well, sleeping, and then doing exercise, doing meditation, whatever you want to do. That’s all wellness takes. Now, you need balance to do what? It is to sustain that wellness. But if, “I’m doing well. I’m doing meditation and everything, but the situation, I don’t have time to even practice what can keep me well,” so there can be balance in your life.

So what I do is I have them say, “What is it that I want?” When you know what you want, then I want you to know, now, because this is the question that I insist on in the article, “How am I doing?” When you say, “How am I doing in every aspect of my life?” you’re going to take your work life, you’re going to take your private life, you’re going to take everything. How am I doing? When you know how you are doing, you take acknowledgment of where you are in your state of balance, and then now, what is it that I need? What is it that you need to feel renewed, to feel recharged, and to stay connected with your passion and your purpose? Because your purpose is what keeps you going, no matter what. It is what helps you to build resilience. But your passion is the motivation. It is the fuel, what really drives you to what you are doing.

So when we work on this, wellness, passion, purpose, and then now, what is it that I can do? What is it that is beyond my control? So you have to identify this. What are my limitations? What are the boundaries I have to set to get to that point? And then now, we are in health care, so we know it is imprevisible. There are a couple of things that you don’t know. These are the things that are out of your balance, out of your control. So you need to know also, in this situation, what can I do to get back to balance?

And I explain to them that balance is only the how. How can I take every aspect of my life and manage them? It is managing your time, your energy, and your attention, and then distributing them in different aspects of your life. And when they practice, little by little, it’s not something you have to do once and then it’s OK. It is something that you have to practice and continue doing, and little by little, you’re going to see the difference. And when you see the difference, you’re going to keep on going, and you will not want to lose it. So this is what I explain to them.

Kevin Pho: So give us a case study story, an example where someone came to you and you implemented some of these techniques, and you really moved the needle in their life. Can you tell us a story where resetting and improving that balance improved and moved the needle in that health care professional’s life?

Perrette St. Preux: Yes. I have a co-worker, and I saw her going. She’s really compassionate, really good, and then I saw her when she’s always giving her best, and then giving a little bit too much. She never takes her breaks. And then I talked to her after work. I said, “You know what? I keep on watching you. If you keep on doing what you’re doing, you’re going to burn yourself up.” And then she said, “OK.” And she was trying to explain to me, “Why I can’t take my break, why I can’t.” I said, “OK, the reason you explain to me, they can’t help you prevent burnout, but you can prevent it yourself.”

And then after a couple of weeks, I didn’t see her, and I went on vacation. When I came back, she wasn’t at work, and then one day I received a text message. She said, “Perrette, I don’t know if you heard, but I am out of work. I’m in sick leave.” I was like, “What’s going on?” She said, “I couldn’t take it anymore. I was crying, and then I went to my doctor, and I was diagnosed with personal and professional noap.”

And then she said that because I wrote a book that is called Give and Receive: How to Serve in Health Care Without Neglecting Yourself, she said, “Actually, I’m reading your book.” And I also had a couple of podcasts that I did. She was like, “I’m listening to your podcast, and I’m crying, because whatever you were saying, this is exactly why I’m in burnout right now.”

So I offered to coach her for free, which I did. So I went with her for three months. I met her where she was, and then I was amazed, because I knew her, and I said, “I know you can do it, sure.” And then she really worked with me, and then now, just seeing her or hearing what she’s saying about herself. And then she was able to go back to work as a nurse, but she’s still looking for her way out. But she’s doing really well, and I’m proud of that.

Every time I have the chance to help a nurse, a CNA, or an LPN, whoever that I’m able to help, I really appreciate that, because I know that I’m still making a difference in people’s lives, but now I’m touching more lives through the health care workers.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Perrette St. Preux. She’s a nurse, and today’s KevinMD article is “Work-life balance in health care: Is it a need or a necessity?” Perrette, we’ll end with some take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Perrette St. Preux: What I really want to say to all health care workers is that our health and our well-being is our responsibility. We heard about wellness, about resilience. There’s no way we can build them without balance. Balance is not perfection. It is being able to really distribute your time, your attention, and your energy in all aspects of your life. Unfortunately, it is not something that somebody can hand to you. It is something that you have to act on proactively. Now is the best time to do it. The populations, they need us. The patients, they need us. The family, they need us. But we need to stay strong to be able to continue serving with purpose and passion. So by building resilience, you’re building your power, and this is all I want you to know. And you can do it. You can do it.

Kevin Pho: Perrette, thank you so much for sharing your perspective, insight, and wisdom, and thanks again for coming on the show.

Perrette St. Preux: Thank you for having me.

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