Minimizing Medical Burnout: Drs. Kasie & Rockford Adkins Of STAT Careers On How Hospitals and Medical Practices Are Helping To Reduce Physician and Healthcare Worker Burnout

An Interview With Dan Rodrigues

Be mindful of staffing situations. No one wants to be forced to carry twice the workload in an understaffed environment. From our experience, this is one of the most important aspects of a working environment and quickly leads to talented workers becoming burnt out and looking elsewhere.

The pandemic was hard on all of us. But statistics have shown that the pressures of the pandemic may have hit physicians and healthcare workers the hardest. While employment is starting to return to pre-pandemic levels generally, the healthcare sector is lagging behind with a significant percentage of healthcare workers not returning to work. This is one of the factors that is causing a shortage of doctors. Some experts say that the US may soon be short almost 124,000 physicians. (See here for example)

What are hospitals and medical practices doing to help ease the extreme mental strain of doctors and healthcare workers? What are hospitals and medical practices doing to help solve the scourge of physician and healthcare worker burnout?

To address these questions, we are talking to hospital administrators, medical clinic executives, medical school experts, and experienced physicians who can share stories and insights from their experience about “How Hospitals and Medical Practices Are Helping To Reduce Physician and Healthcare Worker Burnout”. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Drs. Kasie and Rockford Adkins.

Drs. Kasie and Rockford Adkins are a physician couple based out of the Midwest. They initially met as medical interns and have raised their family of five amidst their journey in medicine. Kasie specializes in dermatology and MOHs surgery while Rockford is a diagnostic and interventional radiologist. They completed their medical training at The Cleveland Clinic and The Johns Hopkins Hospital. They have been recipients of various awards through the years, including the Top Doctor title. They each spent a total of thirteen years in education and training to become physician specialists. Along their journey, they have been extensively involved with the recruitment, hiring and management of medical teams at various levels. Together, they co-founded a company known as STAT Careers aimed to disrupt the broken and dated medical recruitment process currently in place. Their career marketplace empowers healthcare workers and helps them take control of their own career destiny. They were inspired to launch this platform after seeing the toll burnout and turnover had taken on medical worker friends, family members and colleagues throughout the pandemic.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! I know that you are a very busy person. Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?

Dr. Rockford Adkins

I was born and raised in Southern Ohio along the Ohio River. I spent most of my childhood working within our family car dealership and as a mechanic. I always wanted to become a physician with the simple goal of helping others, especially those in underserved communities. I completed my training to become an interventional radiologist at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. I have been in practice for six years now in the Midwest. I spend most of my time in practice focusing on pain management, cancer treatment, and trauma while helping to support many other specialties with a team approach. Outside of medicine, I enjoy traveling with my family, muscle cars, muay-thai and jiu-jitsu, following the stock market, and all types of live music.

Dr. Kasie Adkins

I was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV. I am a board-certified dermatologist and MOHs surgeon who completed my training at the Cleveland Clinic. I have been in practice for a total of six years in the Midwest. I am a second-generation physician and come from a family of all sorts of medical professions. I am a mother to three children which I had over four years in the middle of the most demanding time in my medical training/career. This has given me real insight on the struggles of work/life balance. During the pandemic, I was very unhappy with my job situation and feeling burnt out. This inspired me to unroot my kids/family and temporarily move apart from my husband to further specialize. It was a very difficult decision at the time but looking back was one of the best decisions I have made. Outside of medicine, I enjoy interior design, fitness and traveling.

What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.

Dr. Rockford Adkins

My parents. My mother was an X-ray Technologist who initially inspired me to go into medicine. When I was younger, my father fell ill and there was no specialist available within our underserved area to treat his condition. This further inspired me to become an interventional radiologist and improve access to many of the specialized procedures I am now able to offer.

Dr. Kasie Adkins

My parents. My father was one of the first to bring a true “old-fashioned,” do-it-all family practice model to the growing city of Las Vegas many years ago. Seeing him build his practice and treat his patients like family was so inspiring. I also saw how hard my mother worked in medical sales and was exposed to all sorts of specialties and the business of medicine through her workings.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?

We entered the workforce after thirteen years of training to find that the current medical recruitment process was broken. A third-party recruiter indirectly absorbed Kasie’s first signing bonus. Recruiter bias was real, and they were demanding large placement fees. We tried generic search engines which often suggested incorrect careers. We were forced to blindly submit our CVs to fragmented job boards only to be rewarded with spam for years to follow. There was no trusted “go-to” source to help busy medical professionals find the right job. Nothing existed to help map skills and job responsibilities required in the complex field of medicine. There was a lot of uncertainty in the process. Many employers would not discuss important details until you committed to flying, interviewing, and spending valuable time away from your family. It was no surprise that the medical industry had some of the highest rates of turnover and burnout despite having many highly trained, intelligent individuals and successful organizations. We discovered there was a ton of money wasted and many third-party touch points involved with this process. To make matters worse, it was producing awful results. We felt a calling to aid our industry and had to do better.

The pandemic hastened many underlying crises which already existed in medicine. Seeing how this affected us and our medical colleagues, we decided to fix this problem once and for all. We invested our resources to create a platform that solves the many issues plaguing healthcare recruitment. The product, known as STAT Careers (www.statcareers.com), is an all-inclusive solution that helps candidates find jobs in a unique, transparent manner. For medical workers, the service is 100% free and acts like a personal recruiter in your pocket without the downside of the traditional system. For the first time, candidates can take control of their own destiny. The platform offers industry leading transparency, proprietary matching algorithms created by medical professionals, privacy options, smart medical relevant filters, and more. It blends aspects of more modern solutions (gig economy and dating apps) with the traditional medical talent industry. We also host non-traditional medical jobs for those looking for side gigs or looking to transition from traditional medical careers. For employers, we offer a complete enterprise solution that walks through every stage of the hiring process. Employers can hire smarter and more efficiently with our platform. We consider STAT Careers a preventative approach to addressing turnover and burnout throughout the industry. Our goal is to create better matches for everyone!

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Perseverance. Medicine is a long road, and you need to be able to manage your emotions and pace yourself along the journey. Expect lots of ups and downs.

Drive. Stay hungry! Keep asking many questions and do not be afraid to be humbled. It is OK to leave your comfort zone in order to gain new skills and experiences.

Focus. We can count many times when others had said we would fail or were crazy for pursuing a passion. If we had not stayed focused on the tasks at hand, we could have easily allowed others to discourage us.

Ok, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview about minimizing medical burnout. Let’s begin with a basic definition of terms so that all of us are on the same page. How do you define “Physician and Healthcare Worker Burnout”? Does it just mean poor job satisfaction? Can you explain?

I think burnout has best been described as a deep moral injury and the causes are multifactorial. It is not just poor job satisfaction but instead something that hits deeper. Imagine dedicating the best years of your life (in extreme cases, up to 16 years) to land your dream career only to find out things are drastically different than originally perceived. You put yourself and family through a lot of stress and are likely in deep debt with student loans. You expect a job and environment you can enjoy but instead find an understaffed situation with strict EHR deadlines, major liability, working long shifts and lacking the flexibility that many others have at similar stages in life. It is no wonder that most in this situation feel trapped.

How would you define or describe the opposite of burnout?

A true excitement to go to work. Motivation to continue to learn and dedicate yourself to your career. A feeling of pride surrounding what you do and how you help others.

From your experience, perspective, or research, what are the main causes of Physician and Healthcare Worker Burnout?

We believe the answer is complex but our experience and research points to a few unique features of medical careers that make us more prone to burnout.

• Unintentional lack of transparency in the hiring process. Medicine is complex and oftentimes there is a disconnect between employer and employee job expectations. When you think about the variables involved (over 100k procedures and diagnoses, hundreds of different work settings, diversity in patient populations), it is difficult to map the skills and job responsibilities required for a specific position. This can quickly lead to job dissatisfaction on both ends. This is one reason while we created our product STAT Careers which emphasizes transparency and skills mapping.
• The demanding schedule. Medicine is one of the few industries that require 24/7 hands on work. It does not necessarily obey set hours, if there is work to be done or emergency medical workers commonly stay late. The responsibility and anxiety of frequently being on call can also take its toll. This erratic and demanding schedule places healthcare workers at high risk for burnout.
• Perfectionism and liability. As humans, we all make mistakes. However, the thought of making a mistake in medicine is often considered unacceptable. These overwhelming expectations create a high stress environment. Lately, we have witnessed the prosecution of medical professionals for mistakes. This serves to add an additional layer of anxiety and disincentives medical workers to take the risks they do.
• Traumatic experience. There are many of us that have personally shed a tear from witnessing the unfortunate situations some patients are faced with. Medicine truly is a humbling field. It is often difficult to emotionally remove oneself from those impactful encounters. These “micro-traumas” can add up and have a lasting effect on many of us.
• Occupational hazards. The pandemic highlighted many of the occupational risks healthcare workers are routinely exposed to. Seeing fellow healthcare workers as patients on ventilators has forced many to reconsider their profession. This great reset caused many to question “Is this really worth it?” Risks such as needle sticks, respiratory diseases, and radiation are just a few those in healthcare are exposed to daily.

Have you seen burnout impact your own organization? Can you give a first hand description of how burnout can impact the operations of an organization?

Yes. This has led to significant turnover which further feeds into the cycle of making others’ jobs more difficult. Medicine is very much a team experience. If you are always working with new, less experienced (and many times temporary) workers this leads to decreased efficiency and increased medical liability risks for both providers and organizations. On-top of this, turnover is very costly for employers (more recruitment costs, paying higher fees for temporary workers, more overtime, etc.) and can further tighten departmental budgets. These are all items our product looks to address.

Does your practice currently offer any mental health resources for providers or clinical staff? We’d love to hear about it.

We have found that most places offer little effective means. Furthermore, most resources tend to address burnout and turnover from a treatment perspective (after it has well set in) as opposed to a preventative means. This is one of the reasons we launched STAT Careers. We believe by creating smarter, more transparent job matches in medicine we can help decrease the prevalence of burnout. We consider STAT Careers a preventative approach to curbing burnout and turnover.

In my work, I have found that streamlining operational efficiency with digital transformation and automated processes helps to ease the workload of providers and clinical staff. Has that been your experience as well? Do you think that streamlining operational efficiency can be one of the tools to minimize medical burnout? We’d love to hear your perspective.

This is a tricky question. We agree that streamlining operational efficiency is beneficial and helps lessen the burden associated with working a demanding healthcare job. However, the digital transformation we have seen has likely fueled physician burnout to a degree as well.

Fantastic. Here is the main question of our discussion. Can you share 5 things that hospitals and medical practices can do to reduce physician and healthcare worker burnout?

Retention bonuses. Money talks and it is typically the top reason employees start looking elsewhere. During the pandemic, there were many scenarios which saw temporary travel workers come in and be paid at 1–3 times the rate of current established employees performing the same job. This led to many disgruntled workers and contributed to their feeling of burnout. If today’s employers want to prevent burnout and turnover, they need to be proactive and make loyal employees feel appreciated and wanted. Retention bonuses are becoming more common and certainly can help.

Frequent engagement. Studies have shown that frequent engagement can help address small issues early on that can potentially grow into major problems. Smart employers will want to engage workers early and often with preferably one-on-one in person interviews. If not possible, email or phone follow-up could be a good second option. You should encourage workers to be as open as possible during this engagement and emphasize the importance of providing feedback to create a better working environment.

Hire quality workers. Hiring those who are best qualified makes everyone’s job easier. Medicine is very much a team sport and can be contagious. Competent, happy workers feed off one another to create a positive environment. Hiring the most qualified candidate can be difficult in the complex world of medicine. Fortunately, we created STAT Careers with the goal to offer the best matching algorithms and skills mapping in the industry. We have created tools using our medical insight and years of experience which help simplify this complex process for employers.

Be more transparent. An unintentional lack of transparency is often found in the medical recruitment process. We think it is critical to be as transparent as possible when recruiting a new hire. We find it very appealing when an employer presents all the fine details up front. This could include information regarding bonuses, non-compete clauses, early termination fees, specific responsibilities, and more.

Be mindful of staffing situations. No one wants to be forced to carry twice the workload in an understaffed environment. From our experience, this is one of the most important aspects of a working environment and quickly leads to talented workers becoming burnt out and looking elsewhere.

More flexibility in contract structure. Today’s candidates want to see flexible options. No longer is the “all-or-none” approach (standardized long hours over many days) the dominant model. Candidates want to see their base hours/shift expectations lowered with the added flexibility to pick up additional shifts at their own discretion.

What can concerned friends, colleagues, and life partners do to help someone they care about reverse burnout?

Inquire about part time roles. Many times, your employer may be open to cutting back on your current schedule. Keeping a quality employee and moving them to part time status is much preferred to most employers rather than losing someone altogether and entering another recruitment cycle. It is worth a shot to openly discuss this.

Explore side gigs. If you are beginning to think a traditional medical role is not for you, then you may be right. Fortunately, today there are many impactful high paying jobs available to medical professionals outside of clinical practice. For example, STAT Careers allows for users to find many non-traditional jobs such as those in finance, content creation, research, the legal realm and more. This can allow for some to experiment with side gigs while supplementing their current income or permanently transition to another career.

Do not hesitate to investigate other jobs. It never hurts to explore new opportunities. A change of scenery can many times do wonders for those feeling burnout.

What are a few of the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they try to reverse burnout in themselves or others? What can they do to avoid those mistakes?

One of the most common mistakes we see are candidates sticking it out and thinking things will eventually change when they have been unhappy for extended periods. We recommend a solid three-month trial as a rule and if things are not improving start looking elsewhere. Leaving can be scary especially in medicine. There are typically multiple things to watch out for including non-compete clauses, early termination penalties, and the cost of relocating. Despite these, we urge candidates not to hesitate to explore their opportunities if they are unhappy. Life is short and it is a candidate’s market currently.

Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?

This is a bit longer than a quote, but our answer would be the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. The poem was one of my father’s favorites (Kasie). In this passage, the author describes how you must hold yourself accountable for your actions, control your emotions, rise above in periods of chaos, and keep a level head. This in many ways describes what we are asked to do daily in the world of medicine.

Ok, we are nearly done. Because of your role, you are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

We would envision a movement where healthcare workers feel in complete control of their career/life and where burnout is a rare occurrence. This would not only benefit the mental wellbeing of our medical workforce but ultimately lead to better care for our entire population.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Medical workers and healthcare employers of all types can check out our product STAT Careers at www.statcareers.com. The product is free for candidates to use, and we offer a free three-month, no obligation trial for healthcare employers. Those outside of the industry who are interested in following our writing can also follow our blog here as well.

In addition, we could be found on Instagram @stat_careers, Facebook and LinkedIn under STAT Careers.

This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise!

About The Interviewer: Dan Rodrigues is the Co-Founder and CEO of Tebra, a leader in practice growth technology and cloud-based clinical and financial software for independent practices. With an all-in-one, purpose-built platform to drive practice success and modernize every step of the patient journey, Tebra provides digital tools and support to attract new patients, deliver modern care, get paid quickly, and operate efficiently.