Remedy for Burnout: 7 Prescriptions Doctors Use to Find Meaning in Medicine by Starla Fitch MD

Author:Starla Fitch MD [Fitch MD, Starla]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781634130288
Publisher: Langdon Street Press
Published: 2014-11-04T05:00:00+00:00

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”

—Kurt Vonnegut

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Kelly, Niamh, “What Are You Doing Creatively These Days?” Academic Medicine, Nov. 2012. Vol. 87 (11):1476.

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Ofri, Danielle, “How Creative is Your Doctor?” New York Times, Well.blogs. March 14, 2013.

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PART III

INTERPERSONAL PRESCRIPTIONS

CHAPTER 6

FOSTER SUPPORT

“This is your precious life.

Savor it.”

—Lissa Rankin, MD

A patient codes and all available staff rush in to assist.

A woman arrives to the emergency room with a severe, traumatic injury and a senior staff member steps forward to lead a team of young doctors.

A patient flails in pain and several hands reach out to subdue him to ease his suffering.

In the hospital environment, doctors work together to support patients. That’s a noble calling, to be sure.

But what about support for doctors? I’m amazed at how infrequently the notion of support comes up in our medical training. In fact, it’s only been recently that support of caregivers has come to the forefront. The need for support for caregivers started getting attention when more and more people who care for elderly or incapacitated patients boldly spoke aloud what was once considered unspeakable: they suffered through severe burnout, for years, in silence.

In the past few years, the notion of physician burnout and how to treat it has slowly emerged as a hot-button issue. In a breakthrough study published in Archives of Internal Medicine in 2012, researchers asked more than seven thousand doctors about their experiences with career-related burnout.1

The study found that the combination of low sense of accomplishment, detachment, and emotional exhaustion experienced by doctors in training is also present in doctors who have practiced from one year to several decades.

When compared to people working in other fields and adjusting for many variables, including hours worked, doctors came out on top in terms of burnout rates. In fact, doctors who work in areas such as family medicine, emergency medicine, and general internal medicine are at the greatest risk of burnout.

The bottom line is this: burnout in doctors not only affects doctors themselves; it affects the quality of treatment and care patients receive.

Slowly, administrators are recognizing the effects of burnout and are adjusting working conditions in hospitals and are changing clinic hours. They are also beginning to establish support networks for doctors and medical personnel.

But while these ideas are being evaluated and bandied about, what’s a doctor in the trenches with patients to do in the meantime? I believe we start by building our own support networks. In my work with doctors at Love Medicine Again, many have expressed relief in just knowing that they are not alone in their feelings of apathy and emotional exhaustion.

The first step is recognizing and acknowledging the unique challenges we face in our jobs. Then we must be willing to talk about them with one another. “Grinning and bearing it” is not a successful coping mechanism.

Next, we must develop support systems in our work environments. This sounds easy, but in reality it can take time and be a bit tedious.

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