ED Physician, PA, and Resident Burnout
This month JC is really looking forward to a robust discussion regarding ED Physician/Resident and PA “burnout” or more optimistically stated, wellness and longevity. If one reviews the recent 2017 Medscape Lifestyle report and more specifically the 2017 EM Lifestyle Report, you may conclude that burnout is a major occupational concern in the house of medicine and the data suggests that EM is among the most vulnerable specialties. If one tracked the Medscape surveys over time, it appears that trends are heading in the wrong direction which may be additional cause for alarm. That stated, when I take an informal inventory of my own peers locally, there are a considerable number of colleagues who have been practicing EM for 10 or more years who seem anything but impaired. Is it their not so sheer resilience or have these individuals found effective approaches to mitigating the sense of “burnout” that every single one of us has felt at the end of a difficult shift? On that note, I thought it would be interesting measure “burnout” locally so in a separate e-mail I am going to send a link the widely validated Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) survey for you to complete the results of which I will report at JC.
This month’s articles include a few peer-reviewed publications some of which have been highly cited. In addition, I have added a few editorial pieces that are really worth the read. More importantly, this is one of those JC’s that personal insights from the novice learner to the 30 year EM veteran are likely to make the biggest contribution to furthering our goals of providing the highest quality of patient care without compromising our individual wellness and enthusiasm for our work.
Chisholm C et al, Reflections about "burn-out". Acad Emerg Med. 2009
Shah et al Chronicles of an emergency medicine intern. Acad Emerg Med. 2007