High rates of clinician burnout in the U.S. are detrimental to the quality of care being provided and harmful to individuals in the workforce. A report “Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being” by the National Academy of Medicine takes a systemic approach to address burnout that focuses on the structure, organization and culture of health care. Read More
Zubin Damania, MD (ZDoggMD) graciously sat down for an interview with the Neurosurgery Blog for the Physician Burnout focus series. He spoke with Kurt A, Yaeger, MD, neurosurgery resident at Mount Sinai Hospital in N.Y., and chatted about neurosurgery and moral injury/burnout. Read More
The prevalence of physician distress has been well documented in recent years, and data suggests that 44% of U.S. physicians experience symptoms of burnout.
A recent study titled, “Resilience and Burnout Among Physicians and the General US Working Population,” published in JAMA Network Open — a journal of the American Medical Association (AMA) — evaluated resilience among physicians and how it compared with resilience among other U.S. workers. The study also measured burnout symptoms to analyze the association between resilience and burnout among physicians. Read More
I chose to be a neurosurgeon because I sought a life bringing healing to those with neurological diseases. After completing my training with a tremendous sense of pride, I was prepared to have an impact on patients and families in their time of greatest need and hopelessness. I ended each day with the knowledge that I had given my all. Like many others, I ignored fatigue and underestimated the accumulated trauma of occasions where I gave all I had, but the patient’s disease won. My blessings were my family, my resolve and my mission. Read More
As the husband of a physician, I like to say that issues affecting health care workers aren’t just dinner tables issues — they’re breakfast, lunch and dinner table issues. This has never been truer than it is during the current coronavirus crisis. Read More
Joseph Maroon, MD, FAANS, tells an interesting story that sets the scene for his journey from burnout to wellness in his book, Square One: A Simple Guide to a Balanced Life. Read More
As conversations about work-life balance are becoming more prevalent, and given the stresses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a renewed interest in the issue of physician burnout. Burnout is a long-term stress reaction marked by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a lack of sense of personal accomplishment. In recent years, the rising prevalence of burnout among clinicians — more than 50 percent according to a Medscape report — has led to probing questions on how it affects access to care, patient safety and care quality. Burned-out physicians are more likely to leave their practices or the practice of medicine altogether, which reduces patients’ access to and continuity of care. Burnout can also threaten patient safety and care quality when depersonalization leads to poor interactions with patients, and when burned-out physicians suffer from impaired attention, memory and executive function. Read More
