Sharee Johnson [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to Recalibrating with Cherie Johnson. Today it's my absolute pleasure to welcome Dr. Brian Lee. Brian is a research fellow at Deakin University Lifespan Institute where his research focuses on healthcare workers wellbeing and the co designing of interventions for healthcare workers and those around them. I think you're going to find his research and what he's learning very interesting. Brian leads the research working group for an MRFF funded project developing an intervention to support healthcare families. This builds on five years of research into the psychosocial impacts of frontline healthcare work during and after the COVID 19 pandemic. Beyond the research, Brian brings his own lived experience to the conversation. Including as a first time parent who has navigated his own mental health challenges. He understands firsthand the tension between a demanding professional role and the realities of family life. In this episode, Brian shares the common pitfalls that he has seen both in his research and in his own life, as well as the strategies that have made a real difference. Welcome Brian. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.
Dr Brian Lee [00:01:12]:
Thank you. Thank you Cherie. Really excited and looking forward to chat to you as well. And thank you for the opportunity for me to share my own experiences.
Sharee Johnson [00:01:23]:
So we met I think first at a Safer Care Victoria event that we both had the privilege to present at couple of years ago. And I felt really excited then to know that somebody was researching what's happening for frontline healthcare workers during the pandemic. So it's just lovely to have come across you kind of accidentally really I suppose, and to now be in a longer conversation. And you work, Brian, as a researcher in the psychology department at Deakin University and you've got this particular interest in healthcare wellbeing. Where did that come from? How did that come about?
Dr Brian Lee [00:01:59]:
To be brutal, brutally honest, you know, I was kind of thrown into this deep end. I was completing my honors year in 2019 and pursuing a PhD and my supervisor came with me with different projects and then she suggested one of this project here. And you know, I think during COVID things started to come out and I was like, oh, this is a very interesting topic. But at the same time I was working as you know, in a caring role. I was a disability support worker. I was also living with my brother who was a nurse at that time. And I felt like, wow, this is. There was some alignment to what I was living through as well, especially with COVID and that piqued my interest. But I think it was not until I really got into the research and started speaking to people And I think if, you know, there's something to know about my research is I do a lot of qualitative research so I do a lot of interviews and spoken to so many healthcare workers now. And I think the more I've spoken to them and understand their realities, that's when I started to understand the broader issues and how much more support they needed and how much more work they needed to be done for them and you know, with them as well. So that's where I came in. And I think it was really, I think understanding the real experiences of the real life work and roles of healthcare workers, understanding what issues they face kind of really made me very, very passionate and you know, I think really wanted to, yeah, get into this field more.
Sharee Johnson [00:03:57]:
So you published a fairly important piece of research in 2025 looking at the impact of COVID on healthcare workers, especially in relation to their mental health. And you were really, I think pretty focused on the frontline staff and you concluded that there are in fact excessive demands on our frontline healthcare workers and that the government, employers and healthcare leaders really need to adapt a lot more support, have a lot more support around our frontline workers and that I guess saying that there wasn't enough as it stood. So can you tell us a little bit about that research and particularly what response has come from that and where your thinking has progressed since then?
Dr Brian Lee [00:04:43]:
Yeah, I think with that research, you know, I think towards the end of the pandemic in 2023, what I did was interview a set of healthcare workers from hospitals and frontline settings to really understand what was going on, you know, throughout the whole pandemic. And we talked to them about, you know, the issues and their roles in the workplace and also their own individual well being of their mental health and you know, try to understand what was going on for them over the last three years during the pandemic. And what we found was really, you know, Covid came with it a lot of different challenges and it was unprecedented time for everyone, even at the leadership level, government level, at the individual level, everybody was acting really challenged at that stage. And I think in our perspective it covet has shown us and it's kind of a test on the healthcare system, right? And it has shown what, what comes out when, when the healthcare system is under pressure. And I think at a stage there's so many factors that comes out of it, like in terms of what support healthcare workers need at that level individually, within their local workplaces, in their units, within their team, and at the higher level of the Organization, organization as well, what they kind of wanted from them. And I think there was one of the key things that we found was that cyclic nature of the workplace where you have this strain on staff's well being. And they started to lose. You started to see a lot of people leaving the workforce and that created a lot of issues. And so the issue about workforce retention came out a lot in terms of how that affected people's well being because they gave us a, a view, a systemic view of the whole issue. And we realized if people leave, what happens is the workplace starts to lose a lot of its social support. You know, your friends and colleagues start to leave. The important leaders who were there to support you will also start to leave and you lose that type of support. And it affects again your mental health, workplace culture, team cohesion. And it creates a different cycle again, a cycle people get strained and people leave, those type of things. Since then, we've seen a lot of focus now in the broader, I guess in Australia as well, a broader focus on workforce retention and trying to do that. And I think that's one of the, and our project is one of that, I guess, response there, trying to find ways to fill that gap and fill that systemic support that healthcare was one. I think the current challenge is that systemic support is really large. You know, we see that families is one system and that's where our expertise come from. That's why we kind of try to do this online program with family well being and we can help healthcare workers within their families create better support, strengthen that family system support. You know, that's one area of systemic support. We believe that will make a difference as well. In other areas we find that, you know, I think uniformity across organizations are starting to progress, but these things take time. I guess each organization we've seen are trying to implement their own initiative, trying to develop supports by. What we're finding is they're very, I would say not accurately fragmented, but very different. Everybody has a different focus of what they think should be done. And it is rightly so. It's all because every organization, every staff are unique. But as a whole, as nationally as Australia, we are lacking that kind of national initiative or kind of a group or cohesive kind of strategy that kind of would help everybody there. And so I think there's still a lot more work to be done in that space and how we can come as a group nationally to try to
Sharee Johnson [00:10:02]:
make some difference here, raising so many things, I'm noticing, I'm really delighted to hear you comment on the social support. I've only really heard people talking about when senior members of the team leave that retention question, that the younger members of the team are inexperienced and being promoted earlier. I've worked with several young doctors who found themselves as head of department because everybody's left kind of thing, probably well before they ever would have been in that position beforehand. But I haven't. And so I've heard about kind of the not sharing of the knowledge and the mentorship, but I haven't really heard anybody name that social support that's so critical at work that you've named it. So I'm really quite excited to hear you say that. You know, there's some important Gallup research that says that people who have a best friend at work, somebody that they nominate as a friend, a person they can trust, do much better, have a happier work life. And so I think that's really interesting that you point to that. And then I'm also listening, thinking, hearing you talk about really what Tate Scharnefeldt and his colleagues have shown us around every unit is different. And asking locally, what do people need in teams and what's. What would support your team in this hospital, in this unit is really important in terms of getting it right, so to speak, in terms of the support people. And then I'm listening the last part of what you were talking about. I'm thinking about, you know, a better culture. The work that they did around trying to find, which was federally funded through, through racma, which is at the Administration College, medical Administration College in Australia, to try and have this kind of overview or a more coordinated across the country kind of response. And, you know, they, they haven't had ongoing funding. And while they've done some really good reports and helped us learn a lot, it's kind of sitting in abeyance at the moment, which is a little bit frustrating to think of healthcare. My view of healthcare is it has a strong history of reinventing the wheel. And there's so much in what you've said already. Have you, have you found that your research, which was really calling on bodies to provide more support to healthcare workers, have you found a generally positive response of people saying it's too hard? Like, what's the general kind of emotional tone, I guess, of the response to what you concluded in your paper
Dr Brian Lee [00:12:28]:
when working with healthcare organizations directly? I think it has been very positive. They've always wanted to. The ones that we work with particularly, they're very, very positive. They want to make a change and they're, they're doing their own things to try to do make these initiatives. And I think it will speak to the points that you've raised earlier as well. I think the challenge is again like you know, creating one that's unique and relevant for your organization but at the same time effective, you know, evidence based kind of strategies. I think they, and that's why they kind of support our work and they really want to make a difference. But the challenge here is not about you know, I think we want to do something, they want to do something. But how. I think the how is always the issue and that's what everybody struggles with. I think if I could raise one thing, I think what healthcare workers or the general sense. When I first speak with a lot, you know, people, healthcare workers, interviews or any, anywhere I think there's always a general sense that you know, this helplessness, like people are not doing something for you. Organizations are just leaving it. They're quite business oriented. I don't find that that's the case actually. They are trying to help. A lot of these leaders are also once healthcare workers themselves. And I think many of them, especially the ones that have mentored me are very strong advocates of, you know, nurses well being, doctors well being and healthcare workers well being in general. But again it's the how that comes to it. And if you think about it, social support, you know, especially has been something that is reoccurring. It's very, very strong team. We know that healthcare workers really benefit and rely on social support. And I think, you know, if the, the, the, that's where the strength comes in. They're very team based work. They, they lean on their colleagues a lot in terms of, you know, conversations, talking about your own mental health, the challenges and the problem solving with each other. You know, I think that those type of environments or those type of contexts allows them to speak freely and people who know and get it very quickly, you know, I think that's very, that's why they didn't really like it a lot as well. But when you go down into I guess conceptually and theoretically and when we think about interventions as well, what does social support actually mean? I think one of a reviewer of my thesis came out and they could really define this and it made me really think when you go into it, it's a very broad and vague word people just like to throw around. It's like social sport. What does it really mean actually? And so nailing that down has been, is a challenge. Well, how can we create an environment that is conducive to, you know, open conversations with other colleagues and then also shape those convey conversations so they are actually conducive or helps people's mental health and well being rather than just, you know, I think a space to do this vet, you know, I think that's where we can do a little bit more there. But then again, you know, what, what's, what's the training there? How does that look like? You know, what type of interventions might that look like when you know the social, social support that healthcare workers really like is very organic. How do you create an inorganic process like training modules and everything to kind of dip into those organic moments. So like very. Yeah, very natural settings. And you know, I think that's, that's very hard as well. But I think maybe that comes down to workplace culture as well and trying to do something there. Role modeling. Yeah.
Sharee Johnson [00:17:00]:
Sorry. Do you notice any difference in the, in the interviews that you're doing between the groups? Is there differences? Are there different things for social support that nurses look for or generate compared to say medics or allied health or other parts of the health system? Are there any obvious differences?
Dr Brian Lee [00:17:18]:
There is. What context specific. You know, I think, you know, everybody. There is a different working arrangements, very technical differences and there's also kind of group dynamics between, you know, doctors and nursing teams and allied health teams. And so those differences come out, but they're more work specific. But if you're talking about more of that supportive nature, I think I feel there's some consistency among the same groups where they just the ability to freely talk openly talk. Those contexts don't come easily for healthcare workers who are always concerned about things, career consequences, confidentiality, privacy. That's one aspect. The other aspect is, you know, I think we hear a lot they want to talk to people who get it, understand and that's why sometimes they find it hard my perspective to, to speak to mental health professionals because you know, if you go into AP and they don't understand why that particular situation is stressful. You know, things like moral injury, we know is very common in healthcare worker context. But what does that mean? You know, I think in, in the healthcare worker context, like you know, doing something that's kind of against your morals. But then if you're, you know, doing things by the book and you do everything you've learned, how can that still be conflicting if your morals. Right. And, but each person has their own set of different culture contexts and that affects that outcomes around moral injury. You know, compassion fatigue is another one. It's very common this consistent with all groups as well. You know, I think the idea of, you know, always empathizing and giving all your best to a patient can be quite fatiguing and then, you know, straining yourself as well.
Sharee Johnson [00:19:31]:
Yeah, we, we have. We made the decision to be very specifically working with doctors for some of what you're pointing to, that doctors wanted to work with people who get it. And we've had, you know, requests to have open up some of our group programs to allow nursing or allied health, and we've resisted that so far because the doctors want to be working with other doctors in those spaces. And high trust because of that feeling, you know, it's probably true that other people also get it as well. But that starting place. And we did make some endeavors last year to offer the same processes to nurses. And we didn't just. We did have quite a good uptake, but not enough uptake to really launch a new program. So that's still on our agenda. But I think that's interesting. There's a lot we can learn across craft, but perhaps the beginning place is within our own work craft or our own, you know, as a starting place. Because this sharing, as you're pointing to is often a bit frightening. If you haven't done it before and now share how you really feel, that can be quite a different experience. I wonder, can you tell us a little bit about your work now? Because I know you're working now on the support supports, the family support, as you, as you already mentioned, and perhaps in that, you can tell us a little bit more about your context and your family situation as you think about the families around our healthcare workers.
Dr Brian Lee [00:20:59]:
Yeah, I think when we started this project, it actually came out, coincidentally came at the same time when I had my baby. So we found out, my wife and I found out she was pregnant in 2024, around April. It was a very, very challenging time for both of us. I think I was in between work and then still doing my PhD and, you know, finding out about it was very stressful. And then I think a couple months later, my supervisor came to me and said, hey, actually we got the grant. And I was like, wow, amazing. And that started off another ripple event there. But it wasn't until, you know, the project fully took off, maybe end of 2024, beginning of 2025. And then my baby was born at the same time. And then, you know, as I was trying to design the intervention with our team, thinking about it a lot, and I did all reflection on my own situation and understanding how difficult it is to, you know, to have a family, start a family as well. You always hear about it, it's, it's funny process. I always talk about it. I'm, we, we do a lot of family mental health research. So I know all about how, how, how difficult it is theoretically, conceptually until you experience it, you understand how it is. This is, it's crazy. So, you know, especially the first year, my wife and I always joke that, you know, we, we didn't really wake up till our son was about 10 months. I think that's when he, he, he started to be more aware, started moving around slightly, sleeping better. I mean, I would say even now he's sleeping much better. But you know, I think we, we, we get, we, we get whatever we get. Yeah. And we, we love it.
Sharee Johnson [00:23:12]:
Expectations change.
Dr Brian Lee [00:23:14]:
Yes, exactly. So. And I realized how important it is, how important our work is as well. Like you know, especially if you know, healthcare workers with demand jobs and then you're also carrying, you know, the burden of having a family, supporting family, juggling both at the same time. You know, I think especially in our roles or healthcare roles where you're essentially trying to help people and you feel that responsibility in the work that you do, not in the sense of just your workplace or organization, but the people you care for. And you're also caring for people at home and so juggling those things and the priorities. I can imagine it's like 10 times harder for people in hospitals and healthcare workers who feel very responsible for their patients lives.
Sharee Johnson [00:24:16]:
I think we can certainly throw in fatigue that you're, you're the new baby and, and the trauma, you know, where healthcare professionals are often dealing with grief and trauma that you know, in a way they signed up for. Like they said, I'm willing to be here and I know these things are going to happen, which isn't necessarily the same as when they actually happen.
Dr Brian Lee [00:24:36]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And, and you, you feel that sense of like you, you don't want to bring your work home, but it will follow you there. And I think the, the thing that I've learned the most both in, in you know, the work and in my family life, it's that adaptation, flexibility, but also the acceptance of, you know, the challenges you face will never, it's not going to go away and then pick it up. And I think we, we ask for a lot of things to change in the workplace and everything, but we all know a lot of these are of the hands of a lot of people and it's very systemic issues coming out but regardless of the challenges we face, we still can have a very, we still can live a good quality of life. You know, I can come home stressed and you know, I'm stressed with work, but it doesn't mean it's not that I'm not stressed at home or like I'm not present at home. Those things still happen, but I still can have fun with my kid. Those moments still exist and I still can enjoy those moments regardless of my own mistakes or failures. Sometimes, you know, I think sometimes we beat ourselves up too much for that. And I've learned a lot to kind of accept those moments and just try my best the next time as a parent, as a staff as well. And yeah, I think that's all what our intervention school is. There is not to kind of erase or help you solve any of your problems there. But you know, despite all these challenges, give you some solutions, some strategies, some tools to still have a relatively and good family, functioning family well being and still enjoy times with your, your, your families.
Sharee Johnson [00:26:37]:
You have shared with me also that, that you have a diagnosis of ADHD that, that you discovered. Did that happen before or after the, the kind of confluence of events of parenting and getting a new grant and a big project? When did that come into the, into your understanding?
Dr Brian Lee [00:26:55]:
I think I suspected it for very long and my wife works in the neurodevelopmental disorder space. She provides behavioral services to children with autism. I've also worked in that space prior to my PhD, and it's one of my interest areas. So I've always kind of suspected it, we kind of suspected it. And it's not until last year, maybe mid last year, I realized, you know, juggling everything, it's affecting me and I probably should see someone and find out a little bit more about that. And the psychiatrist kind of confirmed that to me. But what I've learned through that diagnosis is that it does come out for a lot of people during parenthood, early parenthood, when, you know, cognitive demands, everything starts to add on. You lose the strategies that you've built unconsciously in the past. Even though I didn't know, but naturally, you know, I would, wouldn't be in a position I would have been if I didn't have those strategies. But those strategies don't work anymore within this context. And I think being able to just accept it and try to seek help, that was the most important part for me. And then yeah, I think after that, knowing and really having that diagnosis on paper and really confirming that to myself, really push myself to okay I need to, you know, I think that, that then even though I suspected it, I think that allowed me to not allowed, but pushed me to start to think about strategies and solutions to, you know, to, to manage these symptoms and stress better.
Sharee Johnson [00:28:57]:
Yeah, I'd love to know what some of those are if you feel like you can put them into words. But what I'm also noticing is that the adaptability that we have is, you know, we're an adaptive space species. And so yeah, I love how you described that, you know, you could, you are unconsciously having workarounds. You were, you know, worked out what, what works and what doesn't work. And I think we're expert, humans are experts at doing that, at finding work and finding things that, you know, we adapt without even noticing that we're adapting. And then we repeat and practice what seemed to work. Yeah, and now you're describing. Well then I, I went and had some help and I found out about the actual. Got. Got an actual diagnosis instead of perhaps just a suspicion and yeah, worked with some people about what that meant. And so that was a real moment of recalibration. Right. A conscious adapting.
Dr Brian Lee [00:29:46]:
So. Yeah, yeah.
Sharee Johnson [00:29:47]:
Can you share one or two things that you learned or that changed then for you that the, the post diagnosis period?
Dr Brian Lee [00:29:56]:
Well, I think the main, main one was sort of medication on that, you know, and I, I constantly ask my wife, well, what do you think is different? Am I different? No, you're exactly the same. Still the, the clutch around the house, getting things and doing things. I was like, it's, that's interesting because I feel different and I think the main thing for me was knowing, you know, I think it helped me regulate my emotions better, think a little bit better. And I think that was the key thing there. But I think the, the biggest strategy out of that was that once I accepted it, I think constantly trying new things, but I think maybe this is my personal way of doing things. But I find if I don't find something works, even if my emotions are strategies that don't work, they're. I try something new and see if that works as well. And sometimes I find when it's good, I think it's not always so easy to maintain the strategies as well, but always coming back to it, I think that's another strategy. I'm not sure how you would frame that instead of a strategy, but I think being able to come back to something that you've try it and fail and try it again, it's not, it
Sharee Johnson [00:31:24]:
sounds like some, that, that you were More orderly about your experiments or something like that. You. Some experiments and you were, you know, able to be aware or to monitor what was. What was working, what wasn't working, or what you'd forgotten about and that you wanted to try again. Something.
Dr Brian Lee [00:31:41]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think maybe it's more about trying again. I think that. That. That process of just, you know, telling myself to just try again, you know, because one strategy may not work or something about it might not work, but I think that process of just trying again and, you know, it's all right to kind of fail in a way and then try again is very important because it's very easy to just give up and like, hey, things are not working. Like, I think one good example was. A psychology session. So it's also something recent that. Not recent, But I think 20, 23 or 2024 started seeing psychologists as well. Initially, I didn't find it helpful, but, you know, I think over time I realized, oh, maybe he said something that's helpful. Maybe I'll try again and I'll go back to him and talk to him again and work through things. And, you know, I think as I try again, talk to him a bit about mama context, let him get to know me a little bit more. He provided better solutions and things like that. And if I didn't try again, I just give up. I think that, you know, to just drop off those sessions. Right. But, yeah, I felt like that was something that helped me a lot the last last year or so.
Sharee Johnson [00:33:15]:
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think it's a really, you know, really important tool to kind of draw a line under in a way that. That, you know, when novices, when we're doing something new, when we're not skilled at it. And so often we do give up in that frustration phase. Yeah, nobody likes to feel like a novice. We all want to feel like we're skilled and capable and competent. So that. That early feeling of, you know, oh, gosh, I've got to be able to tolerate this sense of not knowing what I'm doing or them not knowing me very well. And then the other beautiful thing about, you know, therapy and a lot of what we do in healthcare is relational. It is about the relationship and that unique understanding. And so sometimes I feel sorry, you know, it's my background as a therapist and now as a coach, that we don't get another chance, you know, that we. We, you know, trying to listen deeply and understand what's happening. And there's a impatience, perhaps from the other person that they've waited a long time or they've finally got themselves in here and you know, yeah, fix me kind of thing. And of course that's not really how it works. So I really love that example that you've been able to say, oh, recognizing that the person was able to help you or together you were able to get to the things that were important by giving it a little bit of time.
Dr Brian Lee [00:34:40]:
Yeah, yeah. And that time aspect is very important for recalibration as well, isn't it? It's not a one day process, one week, it could take years. And I have been reflecting on it a lot, especially your roles, how, you know, psychologists and therapists, you know, sometimes they're only given, you know, Medicare only gives you 10 and no six sessions and then you get four extra. Right. And like how is that possible for someone to get someone like yourself to get to know another individual in six hours? This essentially just six hours, you know, the, the ability to do that is exceptional. Like that's really a lot. Right. And even if it's 10 hours, so being able to give, you know, the psychologist a chance to do their work there, I think it's very important. And it's not about that 10 sessions for that one year, it goes across many, many years as well. And that's where you see the true change. And I think from a behavioral standpoint, especially if you're coming in at a later life, which I expect a lot of healthcare workers would do, you know, you put on this task on your therapist a very, very challenging task of like trying to change a 40 year old habit.
Sharee Johnson [00:36:08]:
Yeah, thank you for the recognition. I really appreciate that. Of course there are times, amazing times, where you see a person once and they're so ready and they really know inside what they need to do. And sometimes almost like a miracle, it's like, wow, how did that happen? What happened? That can happen too. But of course for most of us, you're absolutely right. When we're talking about behavior change, we're talking about habitual stuff that we maybe aren't very aware of, that we've been practicing for a very long time. And so it does take some time to, to notice and then to keep noticing and attune and unravel and make conscious choices a bit. So, you know, I appreciate.
Dr Brian Lee [00:36:47]:
Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, talking about some strategies, just reflecting on those sessions, one of the thing that actually helped me, you know, tips of our strategy was actually awareness and so checking in on yourself and so. But he mentioned this he said every time you come back from work or you, you're doing something really challenging or something, anxiety provoking after you're done with it, or you know, you want to engage with your family before that check in with yourself, you know, what are you feeling that day and what did you do that day? You know, I think sometimes I can get quite overwhelmed over social interactions and everything. So if I get too many of them, you know, naturally, you know, I'll be a bit more stressed, a bit more tired that day. But yeah, I'm not unaware of it. But that check in to, to build that awareness of. Actually I'm feeling a little bit better now today because I've been doing a lot more not work because, you know, you work the same amount of hours every day, but you doing a certain type of work that's a little bit more stressful, a little bit more anxiety provoking and that would change how you feel that day because you know, you might feel like sometimes I come back from where I'm saying I didn't do much work today, but you know, I did a lot more, I had presentations or something or you know, that that's a lot more stressful, anxiety provoking for myself. Then I realized, okay, that that's why I'm feeling this way. And the awareness helps me and then helps me communicate to my wife. Like I had these sessions today, you know, I might be a little bit off. It's not going to change me and she knows it. I'll still be the same. But she's aware and she's able to kind of also adapt herself and be more understanding.
Sharee Johnson [00:38:44]:
You know, there's an accounting for, for the particulars, at the energy. It's the energy management, isn't it? Some of, some of what we're talking about is, is resonant perhaps in your research as well, you know that it takes time. It takes time to do these qualitative interviews and to track the patterns and to have enough people in the sample to see is it really a pattern or is it an outlying thing with somebody. Can you share a little bit about your experience as a researcher in that process? You know, you're trying to kind of get at what's the theme, what's the pattern, what's the nub of what's happening. And you've got all these words to manage and think through. How, how is that for you in terms of trying to sift through and find out what's really going on?
Dr Brian Lee [00:39:30]:
Oh, you pose a very challenging question, but also very, you Know something that is of very, a lot of interest to me. You know, I think I love doing the work and I've had a few conversations with some healthcare workers who are interested in getting to research as well and what qualitative research looks like. Not the usual or what people go to, but these days the more focus on co design and live experience. We understand the quality of research is much more important and it's getting a lot more. The research community is placing more value on it and giving its credit where it's due. But talking more about qualitative research and how that works. Yeah, it's very challenging to find those themes and recurring patterns. I think it involves really delving yourself and putting yourself into the person's shoes and also. Yeah, I think the more you talk to people about it and really understand, empathize with their situation, you can start to see these things that occur and then managing I guess all these conversations across people is really. It's difficult in the sense that you want to talk to everything they've said. You know, everything is important. You know, a person's lived experiences shouldn't be disregarded in that way. But what is the consistent thing that's across everybody? And I think for me it's always about yeah looking at it as a whole and what as a group, you know, they, they find challenging and where the alignment sits between you know, the experiences where it's consistent. For example, with the healthcare workers there's so many different groups, you know, I think doctors, nurses, hella health, even non medical staff we reach out to where does it all align? Where do they have that consistency in terms of the experiences. It's so different in terms of what they do. But then if you go, you know, I think at the lowest level you understand all of them actually their roles. At the heart of it work with patients in some way or some capacity and that's that interaction with patients. You know, I think that's where we see a consistency of it and then so we get understand. I'll try to understand what is it about that interaction that is consistent about all of them as well. Anyway, what I see is that again empathy and that care. No, I find that health workers all in general go in the profession because they want to helping profession. They all want to help somebody and. But sometimes helping people can sometimes take a cost and a toll on yourself and recognizing that as well. And that's what we see across people. Yeah.
Sharee Johnson [00:43:10]:
So what should we do? Any wise words?
Dr Brian Lee [00:43:15]:
I. If I were to say anything, I think the first thing, and it speaks to everything we've spoken about, is at least recognizing that I think there can be some guilt around it sometimes or, or that process of it shouldn't be that hard. You know, I think it's very normal to feel that way. And you do need space and time for yourself to process a lot of these things. But most of the time, healthcare workers don't. They don't have time to process these things. They don't have the space to do it as well, or they're just not aware of it and they don't actually process it. One interesting thing that comes up in our team in the conversations, because the lead chief investigator, she's a psychologist herself, she's been doing it many years. And I always talk to her about this because I'm not a psychologist, I'm just a researcher. I say every time I talk to healthcare workers, they talk about all these experiences. They. There are times where they talk about traumatic experiences in at work, which is very traumatic, and they recognize that. But then there are the small little bits that comes up in the conversations that they seem to not dismiss it, but they don't realize how traumatic it is. And then coming from somebody who's not in that field at all, I'm like, that's very interesting because I wouldn't be able to handle that. I've talked to my brother as well about it. And every day they deal with, you know, blood loss. Like maybe he, he works in endoscopy. So, you know, I think they, they do things. Yeah. I mean, like you. If that situation where you're thinking about the person's blood and they possibly might lose a lot of blood and, you know, you're looking at these things and you. I couldn't do that. In no way. Right. I couldn't even think about it. You know, the pressure on it is very, very hard. But you just get so accustomed to it and they get so accustomed to it.
Sharee Johnson [00:45:16]:
Yeah, I couldn't do it. That's a. It's just such a vivid example, isn't it, that this. Healthcare professionals will say to me, all kinds of healthcare professionals, I'm just doing my job.
Dr Brian Lee [00:45:29]:
Yeah, yeah. That's why we hear too.
Sharee Johnson [00:45:32]:
Yeah. So that's. It's, it's nothing special. It's ordinary. They're desensitized is the psychologist word for it.
Dr Brian Lee [00:45:39]:
Yes, you're doing.
Sharee Johnson [00:45:41]:
And, and that does overflow, in my experience, into things that actually are causing trauma and are accumulating inside the person's body that they're Unaware of very often because they're just doing them. They weren't doing anything special. They were just doing the ordinary thing that a nurses do or that doctors do or that OTS do or whatever. You know, they're. They're responding in the way that they've been trained to respond. I think we've made a huge error in probably the last hundred years, maybe longer, in expecting people to be unemotional about that.
Dr Brian Lee [00:46:14]:
Exactly.
Sharee Johnson [00:46:15]:
See that spill over now into what we're talking about. That, that's just normal. I'm just doing my job. And I was thinking about this earlier when you were talking as well, that people, when we were talking about the social impact of people. People don't want to call in sick or say that they can't come to work because they don't want to let their teammates down and because they don't want to be seen as weak or not handling it. I think, I think we are seeing some changes in that. But they're very strong cultural narratives in health, these ideas.
Dr Brian Lee [00:46:45]:
Yeah, yeah. I think it's very hard, like I think this. But I'm glad that the narrative is starting to come out in the literature as well. So. So it's not just in the workplace, but in the literature as well, recognizing that workplace culture plays a very, very strong role. And like you said, one of it is just that aspect of. No, that guilt for staff as well. But there's other aspect that plays into the workplace culture in healthcare is that guilt for patients. Right. Because it's not just you letting your teammates down or your team down, but a gap in staffing would mean also drop in quality of care for patients, you know, so that affects that. So you know that there's a lot of that guilt there as well. And how do we help change that workplace culture? And a lot of it comes down to, you know, staffing. And if we've got proper staffing, that would help and do these type of things. But the older and the more senior healthcare workers I've talked to who's managed to kind of manage or kind of address these concerns, they realize that, yeah, you, you can't hold this burden forever. You know, there will always be six people. There will always be someone who needs help. The emergency room will never be not filled. Right. But that's not your, that's not your job. Your job is just to provide the care and that's it. Like, you know, you're, you're not here to heal the world, but just to kind of help one at a time. So I think that process of, I'm learning that myself, the work will never go away. You know, people will always need your help. But just, you know, I think being able to accept that, take the time for yourself sometimes and it's okay, you know, I think yeah, her healthcare system will still work and they will benefit from a, you know, a healthier and I think a more regulated healthcare worker rather than overworked healthcare worker who, who might leave and you know, and then leave a gap there as well, you know.
Sharee Johnson [00:49:18]:
So something there about permission and I'm also thinking about listening to you today that we want to build redundancy into the system. Of course this is a huge challenge for healthcare systems around the world. Know when we can build a bit of redundancy into the system. So there's a, you know, there's extra staff, there's you know, some period of the week where the theaters aren't full or you know, these kinds of things so that the system can actually respond when something happens. And we did actually see during COVID although there was a huge pressure and we had, you know, nurses coming back who had retired and those kinds of things, we actually were able to build in some parts of the system some of this redundancy which actually makes the system more resilient. So, so I think it's really important to acknowledge that we're not just asking the people themselves to take all the burden of being more resilient or more adaptable, more giving themselves more permission, that the systems around them also need to have those qualities built into them so that they allow a little bit of redundancy, a bit of flex day to day. I wonder, just in the interest of time, Brian, if we can just move along a little bit to the current work that you're doing doing, which is about, you know, what happens in families. And again, we don't want to make families responsible for all the problems in, in healthcare. We do want to recognize the role that families play as of this support around our healthcare workers. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're working on in that regard just now?
Dr Brian Lee [00:50:47]:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think the roles family have for healthcare workers well being and their own ability to work well is so important. Right. And I think if you have a family, you understand completely, if you are, you know, your home become, it's not about coming home, but if you know that your home is doing well, you don't have to worry about them and you know, things are going relatively smooth and you know, you're able to it doesn't feel hectic like a chaotic family all the time. You don't have the stress of strain relationships within the family. You know, you're able to kind of again process your own emotions as well and then also work much better. Right. And so we, the, the perspective we have is not to try to, like you said, don't when the family is not responsible. Right. But we know your family's capacity to be able to support you also depends on their well being and that is affected by your work as well. And so that work family interface is so important. So that's where we're coming in. And if we're able to help healthcare workers within that space and you know, manage the work family interface, then your family does better and you have a well functioning family that will flow in to your work and there's a ripple effect. Right. So the work has that ripple effect on family and the family also has that ripple effect for your work. And so it's not about trying to get your family to be able to support you better, but it's about how we can manage that conflict sometimes that comes out with work and family. And I think the misconception sometimes is the words like work life balance or work life boundaries. We try to create that equal balance or hard line boundary between both. That's when we see a lot of issues. It doesn't really work that way. You can't, you know, your family identity is part of you and so is your work identity. Especially in something like healthcare workers where their professional identity is so, so strong to them. And so, you know, being aware of these issues that might ripple into your family and how you can kind of find solutions and strategies to manage those impacts and help your family with those ripple effects. Right. And that's how we were trying, that's one of main perspectives there.
Sharee Johnson [00:53:48]:
Are you interviewing families of healthcare workers? Yeah, work.
Dr Brian Lee [00:53:53]:
So we.
Sharee Johnson [00:53:54]:
What are they telling you?
Dr Brian Lee [00:53:56]:
Partners and children. These are like the, I think the key insights that we've had for the last year or so that have made so much difference and given us so much more context. And it's been very interesting because there's so much there that partners and children are so much alike like healthcare workers. And it's just that sense of actually a healthcare family, an identity of a healthcare family there so unified and so adaptable together and they're so willing to kind of work together to help each other. And healthcare worker, they recognize a lot of the issues that come with the healthcare parent and they give us so much insights into how they can help too. And we try our best to understand the impacts on them. But they're so much like their healthcare parents sometimes their identity is that they prioritize the healthcare parent over themselves and that's what we see. They're always kind of that second priority which I think you might see a lot of healthcare workers, they put themselves as a second priority, patients as first, sometimes partners and children do the same. They put themselves as a second priority as well. And changing the aspect, everybody, it's the healthcare family first.
Sharee Johnson [00:55:21]:
This is really fascinating. I think this is going to be very interesting what you're going to share with us over the next year or two. Brian, what about are you noticing or are you looking at families where both parents are the healthcare professionals? We very often see nurses married to doctors and two doctors married to each other managing shift work and so on. Are you seeing anything any of those families?
Dr Brian Lee [00:55:44]:
Oh yes, a lot of them. I think that's actually a very big chunk of them. I think that is quite. That's some data to support that found somewhere where dual healthcare parents are actually. I think they make up about 30 to 40% of the healthcare population. So they're very common in healthcare families and those in those situations things can even get even more stressful. And my Jade, Shane, who is Jade's our chief investigator, she uses terms like ships in the night. And so a lot of shift workers and healthcare workers can come may feel like that sometimes and they're just like swapping shifts and they can sometimes.
Sharee Johnson [00:56:40]:
I think a lot of them value that. I think a lot of people in those families value that at the beginning because they think, oh well, somebody's at home with the kids all of the time. Actually they kind of lost in that. They don't, they, they lose track of each other. It's interesting part that you've put on the layer that you've added now is this idea of putting somebody else first all the time, you know.
Dr Brian Lee [00:57:01]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we were trying to have that shift, you know, it's good and it's like, yeah, that's part of your role. But you know, how can you shift that mindset to put yourself first as well? Yeah. And you know, in those dual healthcare families, you know, I think it's very easy to lose sight of that when everybody, it's so hectic and you find that children, they, they grow up really fast in those families, which is great. And I think a lot of us now that parent, you know, you want your children to be independent and you want your children to be able to do things at home and help out and everything. But is there things that we're missing that we're, we don't realize if they're growing too fast, you know, and if, you know, are they, are you missing those moments when you're able to really connect with them? I get into their life and what's, you know, stressful for them? You know, sometimes the children might be, they recognize the stress on their parents and so they hold that back and you know, they don't communicate that. So is it possible that we might miss those moments?
Sharee Johnson [00:58:17]:
And it's a very interesting line of inquiry. How young are the, how young are the youngest people that you're interviewing?
Dr Brian Lee [00:58:25]:
I think 13.
Sharee Johnson [00:58:27]:
Okay.
Dr Brian Lee [00:58:28]:
To yeah, 13. 17. I think 12. To 12. 12 to 17. Yeah.
Sharee Johnson [00:58:33]:
School age children.
Dr Brian Lee [00:58:34]:
Yeah. High school age children. But we try to get them, and this is more of a ethical and research kind of perspective but we try to get them to talk about, you know, the, the siblings if they're younger. So we try to get that insight from the younger perspective. But the ones I'm talking about, I guess the context that I'm talking about definitely is around that high school age group.
Sharee Johnson [00:58:58]:
And if people want to be involved in your research or if they're interested to support your research in somehow. Is there a way for the listeners to do that?
Dr Brian Lee [00:59:07]:
Yes, yes. I will include a link and you can go to our site and you will see all that we're doing in the research and you can sign up to our newsletter and from there you'll get updates into our, you know, opportunities to join focus groups to help us co design the intervention. Provide your own voices there. But also we'll trial the intervention and the prototype and they have an opportunity to get their hands on that as well and try that out with us. Yeah.
Sharee Johnson [00:59:43]:
And when you say intervention, what are you building? What, what are you looking to, to try out
Dr Brian Lee [00:59:51]:
what it's looking like now? It's a online web based program
Sharee Johnson [00:59:56]:
and
Dr Brian Lee [00:59:57]:
yeah, can't say much too much about it just because yeah, you know, I think the, in development but we try to stay true to the co design process and that means you know, we are working with actual people, healthcare workers and getting them to make the decisions that we move along. So those, and, and they make those decisions as well. But at the moment it's online well being program designed with some, lots of accessible ways to interact with it. We've talked to a lot of healthcare workers and what they want so things we want to Put in audio and as well text formats for them to be able to engage in the way they suit their needs when they're time poor. Try to personalize it for themselves as well, but also integrate live experiences within the content so they understand how each of it is relevant to themselves and their own situation and how that applies. Yeah.
Sharee Johnson [01:01:02]:
It's interesting how these kinds of tools and the work that you're doing even in the focus groups can raise people's awareness and help people tune into particular things. I'm just really kind of literally on the edge of my seat to see how it all unfolds, Brian. So as we kind of move towards wrapping up this conversation, I wonder, I just want to come back to your story a little bit and say, do you feel like there's been particular people or particular processes in your moments of recalibration or skills or resources that you've used that you want to, I guess, generalise and take forward into your life? What have you learned from your recalibration moments that you'll do again next time there's an opportunity to recalibrate?
Dr Brian Lee [01:01:44]:
You know, I think in. In addition to what we've said before, I think the biggest thing that comes out, and especially with our intervention as well, learning from the. The clinical team, working with them. I think the idea of small shifts and small changes, small steps make big changes. Right. I think that's the key thing here, that we don't have to do many things, so we don't have to do everything well. You just need to do small little things, do them well, and they can make really big changes. So small shifts for big changes.
Sharee Johnson [01:02:22]:
Yeah. Small shifts repeated for big. Yeah. Yeah. Wise words captured in such a small sentence. Thank you. Is there anything you've noticed in our conversation that you want to point to or reflect on before we wrap things up today?
Dr Brian Lee [01:02:41]:
No, I think that sums up everything today and I really enjoyed the conversation here. Hopefully there's more to come.
Sharee Johnson [01:02:48]:
Yeah.
Dr Brian Lee [01:02:49]:
Excited. Yeah. Excited to hear more from your podcast. I think it's so. Well, a big gap in the area that I think can be filled. Yeah.
Sharee Johnson [01:03:00]:
Thank you very much for your time today, Brian. I look forward to seeing you again soon.
Dr Brian Lee [01:03:05]:
You too, Cherie. Thank you.
