Learning to Love What You Hate By Dr. Ashley
Written by Dr. Ashley Chung
Instagram: @dr.ashlifts
Yvette here: Hello Perio Pocket readers! This week I wanted to bring on Dr. Ashley Chung to discuss an important topic that affects all of us and is still (unfortunately) a little taboo to talk about. I met Ashley in dental school, and have remained close friends ever since. I can honestly say that she has been a friend who always supports me, encourages me, and shows up when I need her! We all need friends like Ashley in our lives.
With out further introduction: my dear friend Dr. Ashley Chung.
Happy Scaling!
Burning out and finding my way back
Have you ever felt exhaustion that never seemed to go away? Even after 10 hours of sleep, you never seem to wake up rested. This type of exhaustion, coupled with lack of motivation and a dash of monotony is the perfect combo of emotions to make someone want to stay in bed all day. At only year two into my dental career, I had reached this point… I was burned out. The WHO defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. My definition of burnout is a bit more simple: burnout to me is when you are unhappy at work, all the time. It first may start with a few simple things that go wrong that makes your day an unhappy one, that special patient, conflict with a coworker, procedures not going your way. Then suddenly these days start to add up and before you know it, you don’t want to go to work in the morning…ever.
I’ve always heard the cliché, “it’s never too late to do what you love.”
In 2017, I knew I did not love dentistry so I decided to quit and become a travel blogger
I
dragged my husband all over the world for 2 months trying to figure out how to enter the career world of remote work. It was a month into our trip when we were in Prague, where I had to come clean to my husband. “What am I doing? I have so much student loan debt. I need to get it together and figure out how to be a dentist.” Obviously, the person who came up with the cliché statement above never had half a million in student loan debt to pay back.
So back to the world of dentistry I went, but I was still unhappy and I needed a plan. So I took a step back and thought of the one thing that made me the most unhappy about being a dentist. The task I picked was a simple one: I was not a great clinician and I wanted to be better. Happiness did not happen overnight. I first started taking CE in endodontics, TMD and biomimetics. It was an expensive path, but I started to learn more. It was then that I decided to narrow my scope even further and I dedicated myself to mastering biomimetics. Little by little, I started to learn more and began to build my confidence. Suddenly I started looking forward to going to work. The feeling of successfully placing a rubber dam, nailing my caries end points, seeing good work on a radiograph all started to tip the balance toward happiness. Fast forward to today, it has been a month since we were mandated to close and it has been devastating. It has been devastating, not because of the financial uncertainty, but because I want to fix teeth. Wow, as I type this I am smiling. I beat burnout’s ass.
I wanted to write this post to tell others that it is possible to go from hating what you do, to loving what you do. I am living proof of that.
To the dentists out there who are unhappy with their career choice and stressed about the future, do not lose hope. It is possible to turn things around. I do believe there is no profession like ours. We are engineers, architects, artists, doctors, surgeons and therapists all rolled into one. The best part is that we can help others and teeth all at the same time. The governor recently announced that we could begin performing elective procedures again and I for one, can’t wait.
May 1st here I come.
On a side note:
There was a lot more that I did besides just taking CE to becoming happier. However, I believe this was the biggest factor and what I included in this post. If you are experiencing burn out and want to know more, you can always reach out to me on my instagram. My handle is @dr.ashlifts. I am not a licensed therapist or have any knowledge on psychology, but I know how miserable it feels and I am willing to help in any way I can.
Thanks for reading my story.
Dr. Ashley Chung