The Burnout Recovery Podcast

Doctors are supervised at every step of training, then told "good luck, carry on for 30 years." Dr Suzi Hamilton thinks there's a better way.
Suzi is an emergency physician in Christchurch, New Zealand, who also works in the Chief Medical Officer's team as Director of Workforce Development, and coaches and supervises doctors on the side. Her path here includes a ski-field season, a boat in Antarctica and a high-altitude rescue post in Nepal.
In this episode, Jo and Suzi cover:
The difference between mentoring, coaching and professional supervision, and why supervision is not a performance issue
Why individual resilience was never going to be the whole answer
Suzi's four cornerstones of team resilience: connection, culture, recovery and reflection
Why reviewing what went brilliantly belongs alongside reviewing what went wrong
How one question after a game of five-a-side changed a hard stretch in her training
The self-care routine Suzi actually keeps (it isn't a routine)
Reflection: what kind of support do you need right now? Advice from someone who's been there, a goal to work towards, or a safe place to think out loud?
Also mentioned: the Doctors Who Coach Doctors group, a directory of doctors who coach other doctors. Find out more here: https://www.doctorswhocoachdoctors.net/
**Content warning: death of a child mentioned in this episode.
Connect with Suzi: https://www.hamiltoncoaching.nz
Connect with Jo: IG/FB: @burnoutrecoverydr
LinkedIn: drjobraid
The Sunday Long Game weekly newsletter: https://drjobraid.com/subscribe
Produced by @propodcaststudio. Supported by MIGA.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your phone doesn't need to ring for it to cost you. In this episode, Dr Jo Braid shares a moment from her own coaching session when one glimpse of a lit-up screen quietly pulled her out of the room, and what the neuroscience says about why that happens.
This episode covers:
The telepressure trap. Why the felt urge to respond immediately predicts worse sleep and higher burnout, even when you never actually reply. (Barber & Santuzzi)
The 23-minute reload. Dr Gloria Mark's research on task-switching shows a single interruption costs an average of 23 minutes to fully recover your focus. There's no such thing as a quick check.
Why willpower isn't the fix. The variable reward mechanism behind your urge to check, and why redesigning your environment beats trying to out-discipline your own brain. The right to disconnect.
What Australia's after-hours contact laws actually mean for healthcare workers, on-call rosters included. Practical tools: the real difference between Do Not Disturb and Work Focus mode, a two-line after-hours auto-reply, and one recurring block in your week worth protecting with a hard boundary.
Reflection question: When was the last time a phone glance pulled you out of something that mattered, and what did it actually cost you?
Action step: Choose one recurring commitment this week and put your phone on Do Not Disturb. Properly off, not just silenced.
Connect with Dr Jo Braid: Instagram/Facebook: @burnoutrecoverydr LinkedIn: Dr Jo Braid Newsletter: The Sunday Long Game — drjobraid.com/subscribe Produced by @propodcaststudio. Supported by MIGA.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can know every script. You can know that no is a full sentence. And you can still say yes — because some quieter part of you doesn't believe you're allowed to say no. This week Jo goes underneath the boundaries series to look at the self-esteem doing the real work behind every hard conversation.
THE SIGNAL
→ Self-esteem = your satisfaction, confidence and self-respect. Not fixed — trainable, like any other skill.
→ Four scenarios where it shows up: family, patients, colleagues, yourself.
→ A script is only half the equation. Words + self-esteem, not words instead of self-esteem.
→ Boundaries have two parts: the request, and the consequence.
→ The neuroscience: social disapproval activates the same pathway as physical pain (Eisenberger, UCLA). That's why willpower alone doesn't hold a boundary — but the circuitry is trainable.
→ Counterintuitive truth: weak boundaries look like closeness. Healthy ones are what actually build trust.
THE RESET
→ Family: practise one small no this week, no justification, no rush to fill the silence.
→ Patients: "I want to give this the time it deserves — let's book you back in." Protecting quality of care, not abandoning it. → Colleagues: before saying yes, try "let me check and come back to you."
→ Yourself: end each day this week noticing where you spoke to yourself in a tone you'd never use with a colleague.
Pick one scenario. Practise one boundary. Write down what you notice afterwards — that's your evidence file.
RESOURCES
No Is a Full Sentence, Jo's boundary scripts resource, is live now: drjobraid.com/store
The Sunday Long Game newsletter: drjobraid.com/subscribe
IG/FB: @burnoutrecoverydr | LinkedIn: Dr Jo Braid
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You cut your hours to protect your time, and that protected time can become the most raided time in your week.
Dr Jo Braid shares what a real, full Monday looks like (home visit, clinical letters, her own coaching session, a board meeting) and why chosen switching feels like a rhythm while imposed switching feels like being pecked at.
IN THIS EPISODE:
Why so many clinicians go part-time, and where the inbox goes on their days off
Why a "quick" email costs more than it looks, and why the enemy is the open loop, not the switch
The rituals you already own for moving between roles: the drive, the school gate, the change of clothes
THE RESEARCH: Shanafelt et al., Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2016: emotional exhaustion and cutting hours (correlation, not causation) Micek et al., JAMA Network Open, 2023: part-time physicians and inbox time (US, one health service)
TRY THIS: THE PROTECTED DAY CHARTER
Name the zone and its edge: this zone is for ___ and ends when ___.
Close the loop: one minute on where you left off and what's next.
Guard the threshold: decide what earns an interruption and who covers the rest.
REFLECT Which of your zones has a clear edge, and which one bleeds into the next?
Is your self-care inside your day, or squeezed in around it?
THIS WEEK
Name your zones.
Pick one blurry edge and give it a marker: a one-minute note, a walk, a timer.
CONNECT: Instagram/Facebook: @burnoutrecoverydr
LinkedIn: drjobraid The Sunday Long Game (weekly newsletter): drjobraid.com/subscribe
Boundary Scripts for Clinicians: drjobraid.com/store
Be human first, everything else will follow.
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Episode 200. That's the number today — but this one isn't really about the number.
Four years ago, I started this podcast while on the inaugural Australian Clinical Entrepreneur Program, wanting to share coaching tools without anyone needing to be in a formal coaching relationship.
Today's episode is a thank you to everyone who's pressed play since — and a reminder of what this whole thing was actually for. Burnout isolates us. It pulls us out of community right when we need it most. This podcast has always been a vehicle for something simple: helping people feel heard, and helping people learn to hear each other.
In this episode:
Why I started the podcast in October 2022, and how it's grown into keynotes, workshops, and coaching
Catching up with fellow AUSCEP crew - Dr Amandeep Hansra and Dr Carlo Bellini - at the Creative Careers in Medicine Conference on the Gold Coast
Two simple connection questions you can ask a colleague this week — no coaching qualification required: What is actually true here versus what you're assuming? What would you do if you weren't afraid of getting it wrong?
A reflection question: when did someone last make you feel like a person, not a job title — and could you be that for someone else this week?
Thank you for being part of this. It only exists because you keep listening — and sending it to someone else who needed it.
Connect with me: IG/FB: @burnoutrecoverydr LinkedIn: Dr Jo Braid Weekly newsletter, The Sunday Long Game: drjobraid.com/subscribe
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.