Yumiko Kadota

Hi.

Hello.

Good to have you along.

Thanks for having me.

Yes, that was three years ago now.

I have been a doctor for 10 years now, so at the time I would have been in my seventh year, aspiring to be a plastic surgeon and doing a lot of hand surgery at the public hospital.

But that year was when I got extremely overworked and burnt out, and eventually I quit.

I think it's definitely a bit of both.

There's been a longstanding culture.

It's a bit like survival of the fittest.

And it's almost like a badge that you wear if you work more hours than anybody else.

So it's about who's tough and who's not.

And there's this, I guess, this idea that the surgeon is a very hardworking member of the medical workforce and you really have to be tough to survive.

Yes, there was a fair bit of that and I think that at the time I didn't really pick up on it too much because each little incident I used to brush off but I think that over time the little things do add up and I think it does lead to the feeling of

emotional exhaustion which we don't often talk about with burnout I think it's much easier to explain physical tiredness but I think little microaggressions that people experience at work definitely do affect how they feel at the end and I think that that's probably an element of burnout that is less commonly spoken about.

Well, initially, I think I had to accept the fact that I just had to chill out.

And that's something that I find very difficult to do.

My sister always says, girl, you have no chill.

I don't know how to relax.

I've always been a workaholic.