UnLeadership

51Leadership's Greatest Challenge

Dr. Susan Biali Haas MD is a medical doctor and passionate mental health educator with a focus on burnout prevention. Her work aims to reduce stigma around mental health, encourage conversation, and change the way we think about work and life.

(Highlights from our interview, recorded June 29, 2023.)

OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, it has been heartening to see the explosion of interest from organizations in mental health and, particularly, the well-being of their employees. Today, neuroscience, physiology, and the science of high performance teach us that our best performance, our greatest impact, comes from a balance—of strategically pacing ourselves and taking care of ourselves in intentional ways. As a student and doctor, I slogged and worked hard my entire life. I got away with it through school, university, and even medical school. However, when I got to residency training, with 36-hour shifts, sleep deprivation, and untreated trauma, I had no tools or support. My emergency medicine residency left me with burnout, depression, and trauma. Although I practiced primary care medicine for 20 years, I wanted to educate and empower people around preventative medicine, mental health, well-being, and work. I was frustrated with only being able to spend 10 or 15 minutes with each patient. I wanted to make a bigger impact—I had all the knowledge and training but needed more time. I knew if I had time to talk with patients about their whole lives, their ...