Susie Muir video 290726
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Megan Walker: Hello, and welcome to the Healthcare Thought Leaders show. My name is Megan Walker, and today our very special guest is Dr. Susie Muir, who is a palliative care physician, speaker, and advocate. And Susie is redefining what high performance in healthcare really means. Through her work, Susie is challenging the culture of self-sacrifice in medicine, and helping clinicians build sustainable, fulfilling careers by putting humanity and recovery and purpose back at the center of healthcare.
How refreshing. Susie's mission is to... is simple but powerful, to create a healthcare system where caring for yourself is recognized as essential, and it's definitely a part of being able to care for others. So Susie, I'm delighted to welcome you to the Healthcare Thought Leaders show, and thank you so much for being here.
Dr. Susie Muir: Thank you, Megan. Delighted to be here.
Megan Walker: Amazing. So as all of you listening will know, I typically talk [00:01:00] to people in the context of becoming a healthcare thought leader. And Susie, you've been on that journey. So what led you from the clinical practice side into becoming, you know, more and more of a recognized voice around healthcare culture and wellbeing?
Dr. Susie Muir: Yeah, to be honest, I still find it strange to think that I am, you know, starting to get my message out there, and it's really exciting. I am still working almost full time clinically in palliative care at the moment, and have been building all of this on the side, I suppose, for the last two or three years.
But in, in honesty, I think it really started a long, long time before that with all the thoughts that were swirling around in my head. So my hope is that eventually I'll be able to change the breakdown of my week so that I'm still doing a bit of clinical, but able to do this a lot more.
Megan Walker: Yes. Wow. Now [00:02:00] question without notice, because I, I can't let that go untouched, that you are already a full-time clinician.
You're doing amazing, important, but also recognizing that it's hard work in palliative care. Mm-hmm. What's driving you to then, instead of sitting on the couch and having a glass of wine, you're there creating materials and putting things together? Tell me about that underlying driver of what's fired you up to, to create these materials?
Dr. Susie Muir: Thanks, Megan. I'd love to chat about that. I think since the start of my career, which is 20 years ago this year, I have really believed that we've got it a bit backwards in healthcare, and this notion that doctors and healthcare professionals should just give, give, give everything to their patients without any regard for themself, I think has really contributed to the culture that we're in, which is self-sacrifice, [00:03:00] endurance, we're all fine, we don't need support.
And my belief is that that's changing. I think that people are starting to recognize that those things, the self-sacrifice and the endurance, can be really damaging to ourselves, to our families, even potentially to our patients. Things like burnout are getting a lot more, uh, airtime in the media, and people are talking about physical and mental ill health, and all the ramifications of a supposed chronic lack of caring for ourself.
So I've had that belief right from the start, but I've never really felt able to talk about it, because people were like, "Oh, well, that's just weird. Just get on with it," kind of thing. So I've been really excited that in the last few years there is an increasing focus on that, and I think that, coupled with my work in palliative care, which for the last nine years is really a daily [00:04:00] reminder of this precious thing that we call life and the fact that we only get one of them.
I then thought, "Right, this is something I want to be part of." And so I find it so energizing to sit and work on all of this in my evenings when I can, because I honestly believe it's essential to support people in health to care for themselves, and to be able to, I suppose, learn and understand the really intentional strategies that people can implement, that they can have this deeply fulfilling career, this rich personal life.
Um, so yeah, I just love it. It, it, I find it so energizing, and that's what keeps me going. I think if you chase the things that bring you energy, then you can, you know, just really do that a lot.
Megan Walker: Oh, so good. You've given me goosebumps. It's one of my favorite parts of what I do, is when I see people putting out good work and information that's really heart-driven and really helpful, I'm like, [00:05:00] there's a burning flame in that person.
I need to find out what theirs is. And so interesting what you say about the daily reminder in palliative care. It's not a dress rehearsal. Let's get on with it. Yeah. Very much. Amazing. Yeah. So how has stepping into thought leadership enabled you to create impact beyond the patients that you can see personally?
Dr. Susie Muir: I suppose at the moment, because I'm still fairly early on in this whole venture- Mm-hmm ... I'm, I'm only just beginning to realize the impact that could come from this and that is coming already. You know, the amazing connections that I've made with people both in Australia and around the world through social media and through my website.
People just spontaneously getting in touch, sharing that what I'm doing is helping and is needed. Yes. And my belief is that if I can keep that going, if I can be part of supporting healthcare [00:06:00] professionals to, you know, build sustainability into their career, that will help so many of our patients.
Because really, if all of our healthcare professionals are burning out, and the stats are really worrying as I'm sure you know, and people now are making new choices, they're considering careers elsewhere. There's a lot more understanding of the choice in the world these days. Mm-hmm. So if we lose our profession to burnout or because they leave, then that is, I believe, a real problem and a crisis that's kind of here already.
Mm-hmm. So yeah, I, I'm still learning the impact that all of this can have, but I've been- Yes ... absolutely delighted, overwhelmed, all of those words, by the number of people getting in touch just saying, "Thank you. What you're doing is meaningful and is helpful." And wow, I mean, that's amazing, isn't it?
Megan Walker: Oh, validation.
I love that. That's so good. You're absolutely on the right track. So what have you put in place so far what's [00:07:00] your kind of m- modalities, I suppose, for getting information to your audience?
Dr. Susie Muir: Right now I have been focusing, well, probably for the last two years, I've been focusing on getting my thoughts out of my mind- Mm
and trying to bring some order to them. And I've been working with an amazing team. Um, their new company is called Thinkers Inc, and they are phenomenal. Stacy and Evelyn, they're a strategist and a designer, and working with them for a couple of years before all of this has been awesome, um, to understand what I'm actually trying to do, to build some frameworks that I can then repeatedly use to support people, but in a very individual way.
And now my focus is running workshops. I'm launching my first workshop later in the year, which I'm really excited about, and building my connections through [00:08:00] social media, getting on podcasts. My dream would be to write a book. Yes. Um, I, I hope that that's in the future. It's hard to know really where all of this could go, but I, every day that passes, I'm feeling more energized by it.
Yes. So yeah, watch this space, I
Megan Walker: guess. Amazing. Oh, so exciting. Um, what advice would you give to fellow clinicians who are, you know, that they've got an important message, they've got that evidence-based information within themselves and within their clinic, but they're feeling that hesitation, uh, you know, AHPRA, worried about what other people would say, the imposter syndrome, all of those things.
What would you say to those folks to kind of encourage them to put themselves out there?
Dr. Susie Muir: Yeah, I can really relate to all of those things. And my main advice would be connect with people. Mm-hmm. Find other people who are doing maybe a similar thing or different but kind of the same. [00:09:00] Get in touch with them.
I was new to social media up until kind of December of last year. Mm. I'd avoided it my whole life. Didn't even know what LinkedIn was. I had to Google what is LinkedIn and how do I use it? Yeah. And since then, I've really honestly met some amazing people around the world- Mm ... just by sending a message and saying, "I love what you're doing.
Tell me more." And that's then been really mind-opening to understand that not only are there other people doing really cool things, but kind of how they got there.
Megan Walker: Mm.
Dr. Susie Muir: So I think that would be my first advice is to get in touch with other people that maybe you're like, "Oh, I'd love to do something similar."
Learn from them. Swap some stories. And my next bit of advice would be to work with a team who understand- Mm ... how to make this a real thing. I know nothing about marketing. I know nothing about business. And so I kind of floundered a bit for about a [00:10:00] year before all of this- Mm ... um, trying to do it myself, and I think I needed to do that.
I needed to give it a crack. Yes. But when I started working with Stacey and Ev, it was like, oh, game on. Okay. They know what they're talking about. I can talk about what I know. We work together, and now I feel like we're starting to, to move- Oh ... move forward.
Megan Walker: Oh, that's so good. It's such an evolution. It's not a quick process, is it?
Because- Yeah ... the amount of mental change that you've gotta give from clinically trained service delivery to now hang on a minute, this is global, global thinking, global concepts change-making. Yeah. It's quite a ... You know, you've gotta sit with that for a while to let the overwhelm settle and keep pushing through some of that in order to get the results.
So congratulations on doing that 'cause, uh, it's a, it's a process, well and truly. Exactly. And so I wanna talk now about your vision and also then how people can get in touch with you. Um, if you could change one [00:11:00] thing about the culture of healthcare over the next decade, what would it be, and what role do you think healthcare thought leaders can play in making that happen?
Dr. Susie Muir: For me, it's really simple. We've got to bring the humanity back- Mm ... across all levels of health, starting with how we treat each other as the staff, as the team. Yes. No matter what you do in healthcare, you play a vital role, whether you're seeing patients directly, whether you're doing more of the kind of back end stuff.
Whatever it is, you're vital, and we must start connecting as humans with respect and with value of each other. That is where a true culture change is gonna come from, and that will then spill over into how we work with our patients as well. I think that this whole notion that there's doctors and there's patients, of course I get it, but really every human is a [00:12:00] patient either now, in the past, or in the future.
It's not this big divide, and I think trying to find this shared understanding that is the central core of humanity- Mm-hmm ... is the key. And then really it will, it will kind of move from there. So that would be my, if I had to drill it down into one thing- Yes ... bring the humanity back. That's my mission.
Megan Walker: I love that.
I love that. How can people work with you? How can they get in touch with you?
Dr. Susie Muir: My website, um, susie- drsusiemuir.com is the place to go. It's got a lot more information about what I'm doing and the services that I'm offering. My main focus at the moment, as I mentioned, is my two-day workshop, which is called High Performance Redesigned.
Megan Walker: Mm.
Dr. Susie Muir: And it is a small workshop with 16 participants maximum. I'm a trained coach as well, so the workshop will be a coaching informed [00:13:00] workshop, building connection through the participants, and really helping people to step back from their identity as doctors or any healthcare professionals can come a- come along.
Megan Walker: Mm.
Dr. Susie Muir: To step back from that and to re-embrace our own humanity, to find out who we are underneath all of that and what we really want from our life, and then to work through the, suppose understanding a bit about the huge influence that the system plays- Mm-hmm ... and the fact that most of the burners are... Uh, sorry, most of the drivers of burnout are system factors, not individual factors.
Yes. So helping people to understand that, but then looking at, well, what control do we do have over ourself, over our team, over the system? Mm-hmm. So I'm really excited- Mm ... about that workshop, and certainly if anyone was keen, they could connect with me through the website. I also do keynote speaking, which I'm just branching into and excited to do that.[00:14:00]
I'm happy to do boutique workshops. I did one last week, a small 90-minute taster if you like- Mm ... which went really, really well. So I think the main message is if anyone was keen to work with me, just drop me a message through the website and then we would work together to figure out what it looks like.
Megan Walker: Beautiful. Oh, well, congratulations, Susie, on all the amazing work that you're doing. And can't wait to see all of this unfold and more and more workshops and, and just that scalability. Is that one of the things that you're most excited about, is the impact that you can have through workshops and bigger platforms?
That must be really exciting for you to, to move into that one to many space as well.
Dr. Susie Muir: I hope so. The reason being that the feedback has been so positive about the instantly applicable strategies that people learn. And so being able to get that out on a bigger scale would just be wonderful to think that more and more people were [00:15:00] able to just change their lens a little bit.
Mm-hmm. As you talked about with mindset, just change your mindset a little bit about what it means to work in health and what it means to be human. And absolutely, if that can get out to the masses, then I'm excited for that.
Megan Walker: So good. Thank you so much for talking to us today. I know that folks listening would be really inspired.
They love hearing about other people's journey, stepping out of the confines and looking at more innovative ways to, to reach and have impact, and you're doing exactly that. So thank you so much, and I just encourage everyone listening to find that burning light within and do it. Hey, Susiee, tell them to do it.
Dr. Susie Muir: Oh, absolutely do it. You know, you- there's probably so much that you can give to the, to the masses, to the world. And I think it's just having that confidence to take that step. Mm-hmm. And certainly if anyone wanted to contact me just about, "Hey, how do you even start this?" Then happy to chat to anyone.
Megan Walker: Oh, that's so [00:16:00] generous of you.
Thank you again, Susiee. We've absolutely loved having this conversation. And, uh, yeah, can't wait to see you soon. Susiee's details are below in the transcript, and go and have a look at her website and check out her upcoming workshops as well. Thank you so much, Susiee. We'll talk to you soon.
Dr. Susie Muir: Thanks, Megan.
Thanks for having me.
