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Physician Burnout -“Hidden Health Care Crisis”

April 7, 2018 9:04 am

A really good review on the topic of physician burnout: BE Lacy, JL Chan. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol 2018; 16: 311-17.

This topic has been discussed on this blog and multiple other sites. This reference covers a lot of ground and provides a lot of useful information. Also, some esoteric piece of information: “The term burnout first was used in the psychology literature in 1974 by Herbert Freudenberg during his work with drug addicts. He observed that many of his patients would stare blankly at their cigarettes until they burned out.”

Three key components to burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and decrease sense of personal accomplishment

Physicians at greatest risk: perfectionists, personal qualities of idealism, and “intense sense of responsibility”

Root causes -work stress (in all its forms)

Prevention of burnout: take care of yourself, exercise, good sleep habits, “learn to say no,” use your vacation time/disconnect

Keys to treating physician burnout: