Viral Fatigue: How to Survive Burnout and Thrive in a Toxic World

There is no question that the past two years have produced unprecedented challenges for healthcare workers. Amidst ever changing protocols, social tensions, and political strife, medical professionals, including child life specialists, are reporting significant levels of burnout, emotional exhaustion, and, ultimately, job turnover. Much of the compassion fatigue literature has historically placed emphasis on self-care methods that embrace positive emotions while suppressing their negative counterpart, but could there be a better way? Using the groundbreaking work of best selling-authors and researchers Emily and Amelia Nagoski ("Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle"), and Susan David ("Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive"), this webinar provides a framework for re-examining the so called ‘negative’ emotions of the profession; avoiding the pitfalls of toxic positivity; and embracing emotional agility as an agent for adaptive coping.

Suggested Domain: Professional Responsibility

1.0 PDU

Learning Objectives:

1. Recognize and name the stages of burnout, using both classic theory and current frameworks.
2. Define and understand the impact of toxic positivity in today’s culture.
3. Identify, and then utilize negative emotions as sources of information for appropriate self-care.
4. Develop a plan for regular self-reflection and self-care that increase one’s emotional agility when dealing with negative circumstances.
5. Explore ways of modeling these behaviors for students, colleagues, and even patients/families.

Thank you to our generous sponsor of this webinar, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for helping to provide this webinar programming for child life specialists.