Many doctors suffer from overwhelm and burn-out in the workplace, most unable to find a healthy work-life balance. Melbourne based doctor, Olivia Ong, is looking to change this and help others become the best they can be.
Olivia is the founder and CEO of The Heart-Centred Doctor and is a medical leadership coach who helps busy, high achieving heart-centred doctors avoid burnout and exhaustion, to achieve balanced energy and time flexibility through her Life Transformation for Doctors program.
In 2008 as a junior doctor, Olivia was hit by a car at high speed. She was told that she would be 'in it for the long haul' by her treating physician and he ended up being right. But Olivia never gave up on her goal to walk again. She travelled to Project Walk at The Centre for Spinal Cord Injury Recovery in San Diego in 2010 to pursue her goal and eventually did walk again with two sticks and a limp after four agonizing years. Her spinal cord injury taught her a very important life lesson, self-compassion. This is the premise behind her creative business, Dr. Olivia Lee Ong, The Heart-Centered Doctor as an inspirational speaker, sharing her story with others.
When Olivia returned home to Melbourne, Australia in 2012, she continued her studies and managed to advance her career as a dual-trained rehabilitation medicine and specialist pain medicine physician. Olivia stepped up as a clinical leader at work using her compassionate leadership skills. She became a mother to two beautiful children, whom she adores, and a very supportive husband, close family, and friends.
However, the combination of living with a spinal cord injury, motherhood, full-time work, and studying for fellowship exams became exhausting. Olivia ignored the warning signs and just kept pushing through until she was eventually burned out.
Deep down Olivia knew that there had to be a way where she could build a career while growing her family and become the leader and mother she envisioned herself being without the burnout. She took the determination she had applied in learning how to walk again and applied it to transform her life.
Olivia wrote her book 'The Heart-Centredness of Medicine' because she had not only seen and heard about way too many doctors on the verge of burning out due to stress and overwork, but she had also been one of them.
In 2020 Olivia wanted to rediscover the passion in her work, restore her mental and emotional wellbeing and reconnect with her family, her inner self, and her identity beyond the physician.
Now, she offers 1 on 1 and group coaching, workshops, and speaking engagements on burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma in doctors so they can stay in the game longer as compassionate leaders, and leave a positive legacy for the upcoming generation of young doctors.
She discovered self-compassion and creative development tools that helped her thrive at home and at work. Olivia also learned how she could take ownership of her thoughts to gain a whole new perspective. Not only was she not willing to live with fatigue and overwhelm, but she knew that if she could change, so could others.
Olivia has seen many of her medical colleagues burn out. More than 40% of doctors and almost 50% of female physicians feel exhausted and drained. Olivia realised she could help other medical peers discover these heart-based tools so that they can rediscover their self-worth and lead the heart-centred life they truly deserve. Olivia wants to help others find their 'spark of joy' and creativity outside of medicine, so she became a career and advancement coach for medical doctors so she could teach them the skills that helped save her life.
Olivia believes that the world needs more heart-centred doctors in medicine and has made this her driving force and her why.
To find out more about Olivia and The Heart-Centred Doctor, connect with her on LinkedIn.
