EPS05 - The Power of Peer Support in tackling Mental Health with Dr Tahnee Bridson

Welcome to the We are Human Leaders podcast. Today we’re taking a very raw and candid deep dive in this conversation with Dr Tahnee Bridson around mental health and the power of peer support in the workplace.

Dr Bridson has a story that for many of us, including other healthcare professionals, will likely hit very close to home. It’s one of struggle, hidden mental illness and the challenges that come from caring for others in a high stress and high stakes environment. In this conversation Tahnee shares her experiences candidly, and opens up about her journey to being a part of the change in fighting the growing mental health crisis our health providers face.

Tahnee is the Founder of Hand in Hand Peer Support; a visionary solution in combating the mental health crisis and surrounding stigma in healthcare, by connecting medical professionals in Australia and New Zealand with free and confidential peer support. It was through this inspiring work that she was named Forbes 30 under 30 in 2021 and Queensland's Young Australian of the Year in 2022. Tahnee is a Psychiatry Registrar at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and studied medicine at James Cook University in North Queensland where she graduated with First Class Honours and was awarded the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland Prize.

Tahnee is not only an incredible mind, but she’s an incredible heart. Her Leadership style is so deeply human and so innately connected to her purpose in advocating for mental health support and reducing the stigma.

As a content warning, sensitive topics such as suicide, mental illness, eating disorders and other personal struggles are discussed which may be triggering and distressing for some listeners.

This episode is not in any way psychological advice and should not be substituted for mental health advice.

If you or someone you know is suffering with mental illness, don’t do so in silence, please reach out for help. In Australia you can access 24/7 counseling through LifeLine, and wherever you are in the world, support is available. Please take care of yourself and know that you matter.

Reach Dr Tahnee Brisdon and the Hand-n-Hand Peer Support Network here.

We hope this episode has brought to the fore the power of peer support in life and business, and the power of community in helping to break the stigma and address mental health.

If you’d like to feel connected and supported in your Leadership journey, we invite you to join us at Human Leaders - thanks for being with us for this episode.

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For accessible access, view the podcast with closed captions below and access the full conversation transcript.

Episode Transcript:

Spk0 Alexis. Spk1 Alexis. Spk2 Tahnee

[00:00:00] spk_0: Welcome to the We are Human Leaders podcast, I'm Alexis Zahner and together with my co host sally clark, we're taking a very raw and candid deep dive in this interview with dr tiny Brinson around mental health and the power of peer support in the workplace, Doctor Britain has a story that for many other health care professionals will likely hit very close to home. It's one of struggle hidden mental illness and the challenges that come from caring for others in an extremely high stress and high stakes environment in this conversation, Tiny shares her very real personal experiences with mental illness and her journey to being part of the change in fighting the growing mental health crisis. But our healthcare professionals faced here in Australia. Tani is the founder of the Hand in hand peer support, a visionary solution in combating the mental health crisis and surrounding stigma in health care by connecting medical professionals in Australia and New Zealand with free and confidential peer support. It was through this inspiring work that she was named Forbes 30 UNDER 30 in 2021 and Queensland's Young Australian of the year in 2022. Tani is a psychiatry registrar at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and studied medicine at James Cook University in North Queensland, where she graduated with first class and was awarded the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland Prize. Tani is not only an incredible mind, but she's an incredible heart and her leadership style is so deeply human and so innately connected to her purpose in advocating for mental health support and reducing the stigma as a content. Warning sensitive topics such as suicide, mental illness, eating disorders and other personal struggles are discussed, which may be triggering and distressing for some listeners. This episode is not in any way psychological advice and should not be substituted for mental health advice. If you or anyone you know is suffering with mental illness, please do not suffer in silence. Please reach out for help In Australia. You can access 24/7 counseling through lifeline and wherever you are in the world, please know that support is available, take care of yourself and know that you matter.

[00:02:38] spk_1: Welcome to the we are human leaders podcast, Tani, we're so delighted to have you with us today and we'd really love to start this conversation just by getting to know you a little bit more. So can you start by sharing a little bit more for us about your story and you know, the journey that's brought you to this incredible work that you're doing now?

[00:02:59] spk_2: Yeah, I actually grew up in a small country town called Mareeba, which is like in far far north Queensland, um inland from Cairns. Um and I came from a family that, yeah, I had never actually, you know, none of my parents or my my grandparents had or aunties and uncles had gone to university or my parents actually hadn't finished school. So my dad grew up on a cattle station in kind of the middle of the bush in Queensland and my mom was an immigrant, so she was born in Sicily. Um and her and her parents came over when she was a child to Australia and she started her life in Australia not speaking kind of a word of english. Um so they kind of came from two very different backgrounds but also similar backgrounds in that. Yeah, they neither of them had the opportunity to really finish school. Um My dad had to help out with his family and my mom came from a culture where I think it was sort of seen that if you were female and you know, your job was to marry and look after kids and you know, you couldn't really finish school like go to university so she wasn't allowed to do any of that stuff and and finish school and kind of got married really early. Um and you know, I think knowing that both of my parents had aspirations and would have wanted to do other things with their life had they had the opportunity was kind of a big driver for me and that they always sort of got me to make sure that I tried my best and really encouraged me to take opportunities and to make sure that if I wanted to do something I gave it my best shot. Um so they were always super supportive and um which was really helpful because I think growing up in a small town, everyone knows you and everyone knows who your family is. And I guess at times it was difficult because again, people kind of saw me as the girl who, you know, was probably not like meant to do well or not meant to go to university and be a doctor. Unfortunately, there's just those sort of prejudices around even at school I was, you know, not really thought of as somebody who was going to be the brightest or you know, do well and often sort of told her well, the boys are going to do better or the doctor's kid is going to do better than her and it's just kind of luck that she's that she's doing this. And you know, I remember once my mom came in uniform from coal, so she worked at kohl's when I was growing up and the teacher kind of how to go at her and was like, well, you don't want to end up like your mom, do you? And you know, said that in front of my mom. Um so I think it was difficult growing up because I always felt like I was some sort of imposter, even if I was doing well, you know, things were going good. It was like, well, it's never going to last, everyone's telling me that, you know, I'm not meant to be here, I'm not, I'm not meant to be the girl that's doing this, this is, this is all going to end soon. Um and I think sometimes that's good, but sometimes it's also really hard to be told that all the time and I really hate that, you know, there was that small minded attitude and I'm sure it wouldn't be any different if I was in the city, who knows, it could have been worse, I mean, um but yeah, I just think it's really sad that you know, you live in the country and you go to a public school and you know, you don't have parents who a working corporate jobs or medical jobs or whatever and you're suddenly pigeonholed into this space of you're you're the kid who is not going to do much with your life will be able to do much of your life and that always really frustrated me. And I think in a way also motivated me because when people would tell me that I wasn't going to be able to do something as much as it made me super anxious and you know, a part of me like fully believe them, I also just thought, well what the hell? Like I'm not going to do it, I may as well try, why should I give up? I've got nothing to lose. Um which I guess has served me well because I guess I've brought that attitude along with me, but it's also really difficult because then you come into a career, like medicine where your, it shouldn't matter, but I feel like a lot of the time, it does matter who you're related to or what school you went to or what university went to and you are sort of constantly like fighting these prejudices of, you know, well known my, my parents aren't doctors, I didn't go to the top school in the country and yes, I'm still working here and I'm still in Melbourne and I'm, you know, I'm doing this stuff, it doesn't mean that I'm any less qualified or any less able than the other people who are here working with me. And I think it sort of hit a, well it hit a crossroads or whatever you want to call it when I was in med school and you know, had some supervisors or some consultants that I worked with who were really quite harsh and we always, you know, there's that kind of, I don't know if you've seen scrubs, but there's, there's like dr cox who's like the supervisor of the junior doctors and it's basically always telling them that their crap, you know, that they're really bad. And it's so true because there's so many like bosses that are like that in medicine and I had, you know, this period I guess, where I had that and um I guess it just, you know, I kept fighting, like I kept trying to do my best, but my best was just never good enough, it was just never enough and you know, it got to the point where I got sick from like trying so hard to be perfect all the time and you know, having no control over my life and um ended up, you know, really unwell in an emergency department with like, you know, all these doctors standing around me saying, well you've got an eating disorder, you've got anorexia, universa and we're going to admit you whether you like it or not, and you know, and that was kind of the a bit of a turning point for me when you know, I kept thinking that I could push myself um to keep going and um yeah, it kind of all just came crashing down in a

[00:09:29] spk_1: what's so striking about your story, Tahnee is that I think it illustrates this misconception that if you're a highly intelligent person, if you're a high achiever that you're sort of immune to the impacts of mental health and you know, we obviously can see that there's this space between understanding mental health and actually the integration of it and, you know, interestingly in the medical field where I'm sure you're all very aware of the impacts of mental health, it can still be really challenging to take care of yourself and you know, certainly through your story, that seems to have been the case, but you know, is this something that you see being really widespread in the healthcare industry?

[00:10:12] spk_2: Yeah, there's like, you know, there's higher rates of mental illness, especially at the moment with Covid and all the stresses and pressures that have been put on doctors and nurses and healthcare workers in general. I mean, there's been studies that have come out showing the high rates of burnout and, you know, symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety, thoughts of suicide in, you know, all types of healthcare workers. Um, but I think there's this really old school attitude in medicine that, you know, we have to wear our burnout as a badge of honor. And I guess this is the message that I've been really trying to spread the last few years, is that that attitude is like prehistoric that the way that we treat and, you know, it's not just medicine, but I guess I'm in medicine, so that's where I see it the most. And I think, like, our profession is one of the worst. You know, we see this attitude where the boss is the God and you know, you have to sacrifice everything for your bosses or your hospital and you're not, you know, it is changing. There are, you know, consultants and that who aren't like that anymore. But unfortunately, there's still a lot of specialties and there's still a lot of leaders in healthcare who just don't see the human and they think that you don't deserve to be a doctor, you don't deserve to be on a training program or you don't deserve to be have a job unless you are willing to like come to work half dead. You know, they joke about how like in the old days you would never take a sick day unless you were like in the E. D. On a drip. And you know people joke about that's how it used to be, but it's not far off being like that still we've made so little progression in this profession that's supposed to be a caring profession, but to our own colleagues, we treat them so badly. Um and we don't want to hear about it, we don't want to talk about it or people are scared to talk about it even when I talk about the fact that I've had personal experiences of bullying or you know whatever you want to you know whatever it is, there's still this fear in me and it's the fact that I feel it and I kind of got some sort of platform where I should feel free or feel like you know I'm able to advocate for and able to talk about it. The fact that I still feel scared that I'm going to get in trouble or that someone's going to like you know, I don't know try whatever they're going to try and do ruin my career whatever because I'm trying to talk out about something that happened to me and make it more acceptable to get help and to talk about it and to actually you know report people or you know tell you tell other people that you're being bullied. the fact that we feel so scared about it and, you know, that we can't do that because it's going to impact our career, or we're not, you know, we're going to not have a job, or we're not going to get the job that we want. It's just, it just seems so out of keeping with the modern world and like, how far we've progressed in other things.

[00:13:06] spk_1: It's interesting, tiny as a burnout researcher, what you're saying really resonates to me that even in this situation where it's really obvious that it's incredibly damaging, not only to, you know, as at an individual level, but also to the profession and the capacity to do your job correctly, that burnout has such a detrimental impact on us and other mental health challenges as well, that sort of schism between, you know, we're aware that that's the case, but we're not actually making the changes and not seeing that shift from the profession itself and from those, the bodies like the hospitals, um that is having to be led by individuals like yourself to start to see that change, and it's a real, it's a really courageous position to take, I think when, you know, that there are very real potential impacts on, on your career as a result. I'm curious was that the moment that you mentioned in the er was that, was that a, kind of a turning point for you, or I'm curious how the journey evolved for you after that point,

[00:14:04] spk_2: I think this is the other thing that I probably haven't spoken so much about, but I guess it's something that I think it's important to highlight is that having an illness or a mental illness, it's not always like, you see in the movies, like you have that turning point and suddenly everything's better. Um I think it's a journey and sometimes it's something that you struggle with, hopefully not for life, but it can be something that people struggle with for years and it takes it takes time. And I think when I first had that experience, I it was like very anti psychiatry was like, very science focused, had never had any contact with mental health was like, this is not, you know, this is wrong, I don't have this illness, and I think they often say like in the eating sort of space that you eat your way out, and I just kind of ate my way out and then kind of tried to, like, run away from having to deal with, I think the issues or the things that had contributed to that, and I also had, I felt like I wasn't very well supported by my colleagues, you know, I was in a small hospital where I was obviously at uni and so everyone knew each other and as much as it's supposed to be private, it wasn't private, like, you know, my confidentiality was broken, um you know, people don't do it on purpose, but it just was and I think then I also had people sort of saying to me that because I had this, I wasn't gonna be able to finish, like I wasn't gonna be able to pass the exams, I'd missed too much. Like you know, just all these really negative like things that people were sort of saying to me and really made me feel like I was just not going to be able to do it and I think I just put all of my energy into, I just wanted to give it a go and I wanted to prove these people who were telling me this like that if they were wrong, so I put all my focus, I think that year into just like studying and my exams and um you know, I always went into exams feeling like I was going to fail, but it was the first time in my life where I'd actually like I'd kind of just accepted it because so many people had just said to me there was no way I was going to be a doctor with like a mental illness and this was like the end kind of thing, but I was determined to give it a go and I ended up like, you know, doing well in the exams and I'm not saying that's what everyone has to do in that setting and you know, finishing and graduating from med school, but it wasn't really until I finished med school because I had ignored it for so long that it kind of came back to bite me, you know, in the butt because I just I tried to ignore it. I didn't want to think about it, I didn't want to accept that I had this. Um I mean in other ways I'd made steps towards like, you know, this was a really good experience and I wanted to learn from it and I had in that time I got to come down to Melbourne and do an elective in mental health with origin down here, which was so eye opening and it was such a A different experience than I'd had as a patient. I was about the same age, you know, it was a few years ago, so they do 12-25 and it was just such a different experience the way the patients were treated and just like, you know, the way they were included in their care, and the way that they spoke to their patients and seeing that and then seeing some amazing psychiatrists there and all the research that they were doing which had been really involved in, you know, sort of when I got sick, told that I wasn't gonna be able to do research anymore, which was sort of heartbreaking to me. But then I got to go down and do the selective and I got back involved in research and I really sort of like, saw that there was so many things like not available for mental health, and there were so many treatments not available that I then really got interested in it, and I went down that path of doing mental health and I think in a way maybe that was because of my own stuff as well, you know, like, I wanted to sort of figure out what was going on for me as well, but I still hadn't really, like, addressed my own stuff. And so it did, it came back to bite me a few times. Um and and it's still like, it's still something that's not easy to, you know, I guess people do cured or, you know, are recovered sometimes, but it's still something that's like, really difficult for me anyway, and for a lot of people I think, um but I think I've just got better at like, accepting help from others and, you know, not feeling this need that I have to be invincible, and I have to do it all on my own. Um I think a good turning point for me was actually the Australian of the year um award where they spoke to me um you know about did I what was my personal story and, you know, they talked to me about how it would be really, it was up to me, but it could be really helpful and could be really empowering to other people to actually, you know, tell my story for the first time. Um and so I actually think in a way it was really scary and there was all this worry that it would be a bad thing and it would get, you know, I don't know, it would go really badly, but I think it was a bit of a turning point in terms of accepting my own story a little bit more um and being a bit nicer to myself as well and realizing that being human, like having flaws is not a bad thing, like it's good to have flaws, and I think sometimes I always had this idea that, you know, you couldn't fail, you had to be like always strive to do your best to be perfect, not that anything is perfect or anyone's perfect, but realizing that actually being imperfect, you know, you can be, you can do more good than by always looking like everything's you know, perfect,

[00:20:11] spk_0: I love that Tahnee and I think sometimes when we, when we're vulnerable and honest about what we've been through what we're going through, we give others the opportunity to love us as we truly are rather than the veneer that we're presenting and that um that takes enormous courage, but it can also be very beautiful to have that experience of people seeing a true story and loving it, not loving it, not in despite of it, but because of that whole person that we are, So that's such an inspiring, inspiring, inspiring story. Thank you so much for sharing. And curious you mentioned that the the aspect of sharing what's going on and talking to others as being part of how you support yourself now. And I know with hand to hand um being a peer support network for for healthcare professionals, how do you think peer support specifically helps us address mental health in a way that's different from perhaps more traditional mental health support?

[00:21:07] spk_2: Yeah, so I guess with our peer support model we I'd like to think that it's more of like a preventive, um you know, it's the it's the pre clinical before clinical intervention is needed stage. Um and there's kind of this like public health analogy where most of what we do in health care is like someone falling off the cliff and the ambulances at the bottom catching them. And the idea with peer support and getting to people early is that actually we put up fences and stop them even getting to the cliff. You know, it's not going to work all the time. It's not gonna work for everyone, there's gonna be there's always gonna be people who may be potentially need more intensive support. But, you know, there's I think for me personally, the idea kind of came from my own experience in that I was so isolated and sometimes it can be really isolating having an illness and I had no one to talk to, you know, I was stuck in this hospital by myself kind of told that I was the only person going through this and you know, I it was like made to feel terrible because I was going through it and I just always think that if I had had somebody going through something similar at that time, you know, another doctor or another health care worker to talk to and listen to their own experiences. Like it would have, I just always feel like it would have helped me so much to know that I wasn't alone. So this is kind of the like, you know, the evidence I guess behind the peer support model, you know, which has obviously been going on for years in other industries, but then there's also, I guess my personal view and why I felt it would be helpful and we see it too. I mean peer support is what they use and things like alcoholics anonymous or even the most like obvious example is like your mother baby groups there, um you know, peer support groups for new moms and um they're often, you know, really helpful. One of our members often likes to joke that his wife is still in mom's babies group 31 years down the

[00:23:13] spk_1: Gold. I think this really highlights the power of human connection through peer support in helping us deal with a myriad of issues as you've mentioned, Tani from alcohols, anonymous through to new mothers and new parents groups, and I think that we forget that all jobs are still a deeply human experience and I think that for health care workers, you know, we we often see the white coat and we see the doctor first and we forget there's actually a human being beneath that having to use their brain and leave their kids at home every day to show up and um save lives and take care of people. And I think that it's almost like this compartmentalization of when you walk in the doors of the hospital, like now you're the doctor and you're not the human anymore. And I imagine that would be really challenging and you know, I I would love to dive into this further because I think, you know, we have the metrics now to understand the impact of mental health across industry, but can you maybe highlight for us, like, what's the impact of poor mental health in the health care industry, you know, and how does that actually impact on some of these doctors ability and nurses and physios and other health care workers? How does that actually impact on their ability to do their job?

[00:24:35] spk_2: I mean, I think the most simple example is just sort of days of work lost. I think, you know, we there's probably a lot, I don't know if the top of my head, but you know, what's the metric days off for, you know, work days lost or whatever. It might be the official name is, but you know the number of days that people are off sick and than the additional burden on the other stuff. Not that it's bad to take time off. You know, people need to take time off, but I think when we leave things that late that people are so unwell then the, you know, we also lose staffing and we, you know, increase the burden on the system as a whole. Um, you know, the bed pressures all of that kind of stuff. It all like piles into one another and um, you know, whereas if we're able to support people and you know, it just comes back to simple things to like even just making sure staff get a lunch break so that you know, doesn't contribute to their burnout or like having a bathroom break, stuff like that. If we could, you know, just make sure these simple like human rights are granted to healthcare workers the like level of burnout and you know, not even going as far as mental illness, but just like, you know, sort of compassion fatigue, all of that sort of stuff would just if we could actually treat our staff right? You know, that would improve astronomically and it's just stuff that's been going on like for years and you know, there's just been so little movement in these providing these basic necessities to start.

[00:26:20] spk_0: Yeah. And I can see how frustrated you are even just you know, describing that being on the receiving end of that. And you know, it's interesting because you mentioned these ideas of you know absent ears and people having to have sick days um and we know that, you know absenteeism or or um long periods of being in burnout is obviously in a lot of ways a precursor to employee retention issues. And in a country like Australia where we already have such a health care worker shortage and we have, as you said, increasing bed pressures. It's an entire systemic issue at that point. And I think, you know that that's in the worst case scenario, but I think before that we even have the impacts to patient care. I imagine someone who's got such a mental load and such a heavy burden of dealing with mental illness isn't able to deliver the best possible clinical care that they could should they be on their game and feel like they're able to take care of themselves.

[00:27:14] spk_2: Yeah, well I was just going to say absenteeism is kind of the later stage. But yeah, we also have like present he is um where people are there but like not functioning at their best and that's not good for them. It's not good for the patient care, it's not good for anyone, but there's just this, you know pressure. I think that health systems put on people to keep turning up to keep turning up. We just, you know, there's there's so much pressure and that's why there is this thing present here is um where we all end up turning up to work even when we shouldn't be there. And that just again like leads to burnout.

[00:27:52] spk_1: Yeah. So much of what you're saying really echoes a lot of the research that I've done into burnout as well, in the sense that it's these are systemic issues. We shouldn't be when it comes down to people having lunch breaks and being, having healthy working hours, being able to rest and recuperate in a way that our bodies and minds need to properly function. These are systemic issues. This should not be down to one individual making a case by case decision for themselves or for others. We really need to redress things at a systemic level in organizations so that people aren't having to try and set these boundaries for themselves. But the systems are actually working to ensure that people have well being and balance in life, that we need to be our best selves. And I'm curious you mentioned earlier that there's this real stigma around mental health issues in the medical world. I'd love to dig in a little bit to why you think that stigma remains.

[00:28:51] spk_2: I think it's really complex, but I think some of it goes back to the kind of medicine in many ways like, yes, we have all these like modern technologies, but it's also kind of archaic in the way that we interact with each other and this hierarchical approach where, you know, you wouldn't dare call someone who's a professor anything but their title, even though you might be called like intern, you know, you know, there's this real kind of, it's very like old age, isn't it? You shouldn't be seeing that in the workplaces, but yet that still exists in medicine. And I think a lot of those older attitudes where you had to turn up, you had to be there every day, you couldn't be sick, that all sort of plays into them the stigma that well, you can't be unwell and you can't have a mental illness, you know, there's still so much stigma in the general population about mental health and getting help, that you would think our own profession would be better at dealing with that. But in fact, you know, we're probably most of the time, worse. And unfortunately within medicine and within specialties, people sometimes look down on psychiatry, they look down on us and think that we're not as worthy as specialist or a specialty. And so, you know, why would we, and then of course, that then feeds more into the stigma and not wanting to get help and that kind of stuff. And I think it's only like with our generation and the younger generation coming through that were really trying to fight this um old school attitude, because I think it's just I feel that it's just leading to more issues and more, you know, more lives, lost more careers, lost more burnout, more illness. It's not helping anyone.

[00:30:40] spk_0: It sounds both fascinating that medicine, as you mentioned, can have some of this incredible leading technology and be it the four of so many innovative ways in fixing human problems. Yet, as you mentioned as well, be almost behind the ball when it comes to addressing mental health. And you've made note that it's a combination of things from a systemic industry wide issue around hierarchy and the nature of the work, but there's also this stigma that you need to be the highest performing people in your field and therefore shouldn't be incurring or having mental health issues, which is hugely problematic. And I'd love to dive into how peer support maybe provides an alternative to some of the more traditional counseling or psychology and the sorts of things that we would traditionally access as a way to handle mental health. What are your thoughts like, how does peer support do this differently? And, you know, is it more preventative? Does it ease people into mental health support? I'd love to know more about how peer support sort of fits differently with the medical profession and might provide us a new way of looking at addressing mental health.

[00:32:02] spk_2: Yeah, I think peer support because it is seen as sort of, you know, the step before clinical help. I think we've noticed that a lot of people feel so much more comfortable coming to us, you know and it's almost like they feel like asking for some peer support is more acceptable than going to their doctor and getting help and which is great you know, I guess that's why we want to be here because we want people to reach out to help um and you know we want people to feel like it's okay to do that. Um And and even like when people do come to us and you know we sort of say we think that you know you'd also benefit from some additional support, maybe a psychology or something like that. It feels like people are almost more open to it when we say it because you know it's like we're confirming that you know it's okay to get help, it's you know, we're reassuring them. Um So I think the peer support concept can have lots and lots of benefits in terms of people actually accessing help and reducing stigma things like that. And I think in answer to the second part of your question, you know, we're always going to need the next you know the various stages of of treatment for people because you know, but I guess we would like to see well for the time being we're in health care of course if we could you know provide peer support to everyone, be great if we were able to expand. I think what we would like to see is people getting that help earlier because obviously the later things get left, the harder it is then to find treatment, you know, there's all this pressure on psychologists, psychiatrists, GPS and um you know, the later you leave it, the harder it is to get treatment and harder it is to also get the treatment that you might want because, you know, if somebody's really unwell, the decision kind of gets taken out of their hands, sometimes, not always, but unfortunately sometimes it does. Um and so, you know, we are really trying to advocate for people to come and seek support earlier on. And I think also from a junior doctor perspective, I think so often we feel like we don't have control of our lives and the reality is we don't like we work so much and you know, we sometimes like hospitals or whatever, you know, not really supportive of holidays or taking a day off, that kind of stuff and you know, my colleagues and I would love to see that change, but this was kind of the change that we could make all the things that we could offer at that point in time and that we can still offer. You know, there's things that we can change the things that we can't change. This was one thing that we thought we could provide to the health care profession, we might not be able to change the way like hospital systems work or managers were or admin work or whatever. But we can at least put some sort of scaffolding there to support people. And you know, hopefully from the fact that we've been able to like get more supportive of our peer support program and we've been able to get more people aware of us. Hopefully our work and our advocacy as well, can also help to lead some of the health systems in the hospitals, be recognizing the importance of making these changes and, you know, not being, you know, I had a friend who was at a hospital in another state and said in the middle of covid that, you know, the management put some fruit out on the table in the clinical areas for them to eat as they're like show of support. And this is people who are in full PPE all day not allowed to eat in the hospital. And so sometimes it's just like a complete disconnect between what the people up here think is helpful and what the people like on the ground during the work would feel is actually,

[00:35:51] spk_0: it's it's not even a band aid.

[00:35:53] spk_2: No, it's not even a band aid. It's like, okay, maybe I'll take the fruit home and you know, I'll take the covid covered fruit home.

[00:36:02] spk_0: To be honest. I'm a little baffled by this at this point to think that we can treat health care professionals in that way during probably the most burdened experience of their careers just really shows the disconnect as you've said, tiny from management, understanding what it is that you actually need to perform your roles and you know, I'll go further to say that this isn't an isolated thing necessarily to the health care industry. We've seen a lot of organizations wanting to intentionally dress things, address things like mental health and well being, but not, you know, they'll introduce things like gym memberships or, um, I don't know, staff parties and all these kinds of things to help try and address employees well being and mental health, but systemically there's no change to things like the working conditions on call rates, the expectation or the job design while they're at work. You know, you've mentioned that On an eight or a 12 hour shift or whatever it is you're doing, there's no time for toilet breaks, there's no time for lunch breaks like that systemically an issue of overloading staff and it speaks to this as you've said, you're doing your best to address this in the way that you can, which has introduced peer support, which is really, um, a preventative way of handling mental health. However, it's not addressing the big picture and that is what are the working conditions for health care professionals and if leadership and those running hospitals don't step up and actually look at things like the job design and the pressures on health care professionals and shift that fundamentally in a systemic way there's only so much that getting support for your mental health can do when you're experiencing overload and stress on a day to day basis, that's actually not able to be reduced through the way that you work.

[00:38:04] spk_2: I think just basic stuff would be, you know, working hours like working the actual hours that you're rostered to work and actually having like a designated lunch break. I mean, there are not many, I don't feel like there are too many professions left out there where it's seen as like a crime to take a lunch break or you know, stop for a break. So I think simple stuff like that, just allowing people to have the break and work their actual designated hours or if, you know, obviously, we know there are emergencies and we know that not everything in health is smooth sailing and that sometimes there will be situations that we just can't leave. No, that's, it's always going to be the unpredictable in health, but how about actually getting paid for that over time and not having to, you know, fight to get paid or not being able to get paid or having to justify why you're getting paid only to be told it's not a sufficient reason, like you shouldn't have had to stay back to do that. You know, I mean, simple things like that just shouldn't even have to be so difficult. Um, and then of course, you know, being able to take leave like why I obviously get again that we are a stretched health system, but why is it that as, you know juniors, we only get a certain amount of leave each year or you know that we can't take unpaid leave or you know, like things like that we just wouldn't even think of doing really. Yeah. I just, I just feel like it's so basic like, you know, really common sense kind of things that need to change. And I think sometimes like people who have been around for a while, you know, who are in leadership positions can sometimes kind of look down on people like me and other people in my generation and say that we're all just kind of sucks and you know, we don't know how good we have it and you know, we just whinge about everything and you know, with a generation that just complains all the time. But I think it's not that I think it's just that now, you know, we, I guess they're a generation that have been taught what's right and what's not right and that's sort of been instilled in us and we're not happy to just kind of sit around and be treated like this and you know, I think the pressure's at the moment are probably the worst. They've been since the spanish flu or the wars. So to say that when we had it worse, you can't say that you can't compare apples with oranges, you know, like people can judge and criticize or whatever all they want, but I think that at some level need to take on board the feedback of the people who are working on the ground, who are saying how difficult it is and look at the stats of how overwhelmed the hospitals are at the moment. You know, you're not going to pluck staff out of thin air unless things change, they're going to go where the best conditions are. And I know for me, I, you know, I'm so lucky at the moment because I work in a job that's super supportive and you know, I love the position that I've got and everyone is, you know, really supportive and I obviously had in the past been at places where I wasn't that supportive and I left, you know, like that and and that's what's going to happen. People aren't gonna stick around for it.

[00:41:31] spk_2: I have to say as a gen x, I'm just so excited for that change. And that for me it's not it's not being six or being weak, it's actually powerful to say this is not okay, we're not going to accept these kind of working conditions and that might have been okay for the older generations, but and you're right that apples and oranges comparison doesn't get us anywhere and it just only keeps us stuck in the past. So I'm really excited for that. I think very empowering steps that your generation is taking towards creating this shift that we so urgently need. Um Tony. I'm really curious just to sort of wrap up a conversation. I'm wondering if someone's listening and they're really in a position where they are struggling with their mental health and your story is really resonating for them. What advice would you give them?

[00:42:22] spk_2: I think don't wait until you know, somebody is making a call for you. Like I'm all about empowerment and having a having some control and autonomy over your life and treatment and um as hard as it is, I think reach out to someone and it doesn't have to be a doctor or a health professional, it can be a friend, someone that you trust a parent, whoever it might be, but I think, you know, it can be so I think the right word is cathartic to just like talk with someone about what's going on sometimes that whole like word vomit just debriefing with someone, you might not know how helpful that act of just talking to someone can be. And I think don't discount that the power of talking

[00:43:14] spk_1: Tahnee thank you. That has been such a powerful and such a potent message. What I've got from that is to not allow yourself to sit in silence and feel alone if you are struggling with mental health issues to reach out to speak up to connect because there are other people going through what you're going through and as you've highlighted today, Tiny in particular in the healthcare industry, thank you so much for being with us today. Tiny for sharing such a candid and raw personal experience. We appreciate you and we appreciate the incredible work that you're doing so much. Thank you for being with us and we are human leaders.

[00:43:59] spk_0: Thank you so much for having

[00:44:00] spk_0:If this episode has raised issues for you, please know that there is no shame in reaching out for help in Australia. You can access 24/7 counseling through lifeline and wherever you are in the world support is available, please take care of yourself and know that you matter. This episode is not in any way psychological advice and should not be substituted for mental health advice to learn more about dr Tani Brinson and to connect with the hand and hand support platform. Please see our show notes for full details. We hope that this episode has brought to the fore the power of peer support in life and in business and the power of community in helping to break the stigma and address mental health in a preventative way. If you'd like to feel more connected and supported in your leadership journey to We invite you to join us at www dot We are human leaders dot com Thank you for being with us for this episode