Self-Care and Resilience Techniques to Combat Diabetes Care and Education Specialist Burnout

Diabetes care and education specialists today operate within a complex health care environment, with increasing technology, new medications with potentially serious side effects, and many demands on time. Additionally, there is a burgeoning epidemic of obesity and concomitant rising incidence of diabetes.Feeling overwhelmed by these challenges is not uncommon among diabetes care and education specialists; however, this must be differentiated from the serious syndrome of burnout. The Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) characterizes burnout as emotional exhaustion resulting in depersonalization and decreased personal work accomplishment. A burned-out employee is overwhelmed by work to the point of feeling fatigued, unable to face the demands of the job, and unable to engage effectively with others. They are more likely to make mistakes, feel resentment, feel stressed, have poor self-care, and be less likely to seek advancement opportunities.AHRQ describes multiple risk factors that contribute to burnout, such as time pressure, lack of control over work processes, role conflict, poor relationships between groups and with leadership, the emotional intensity of clinical work, as well as personal predisposing factors. This is in addition to any personal stress brought from home life.Over time, unchecked health care worker burnout may result in loss of the human capacity for empathy, which is a core necessity of the health care profession.Over time, unchecked health care worker burnout may result in loss of the human capacity for empathy, which is a core necessity of the health care profession.