When You Feel The Burn
Have you ever felt that your job is a dead end or that you have lost your passion for your field of work?
This is a common feeling among many working adults and is largely due to stress and anxiety. It appears to be more common in women in high pressure positions even in the medical field.
The term “burnout” was coined in the 1970s by the American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger. He used it to describe the consequences of severe stress and high ideals in “helping” professions. Nowadays, it seems it can affect anyone, from stressed-out careerists and overworked employees, homemakers and students. Generally, individuals become disinterested and unmotivated in their line of work and is characterized by symptoms of tiredness, sleep deprivation, work-related excessive stress and anxiety and increased frustration at work.
There are multiple theories as to why many are feeling this way. Some have suggested that convenient technology have caused society to become less patient, more demanding and more willing to carry out work into non-working hours creating a lack of decompression from work related activities. Also companies’ expectations and societal pressures are affecting the frequency of burnout. American workers have shown to work an average of 47 hours per week and continue to overextend themselves by complying with demands for extended hours, working through weekends and never saying no to any request. This overextension usually lead to burnout.
Healthcare workers are not immuned. Health care careers are usually glamorized as respectable, helpful and with high income earning potential but why are physicians some of the most dissatisfied workers in the country?
According to Medscape National Physician Burnout and Depression Report 2018, approximately 42% of physicians reported feeling burned out. This was attributable to multiple factors such as too many bureaucratic tasks (charting, paperwork), spending too many hours at work, lack of respect from administrators, colleagues or staff, increasing computerization of practice (EHR), insufficient compensation, lack of control/autonomy, feeling like a cog in a wheel and lack of respect from patients to name a few. The prevalence of burnout in family physicians range from 25% to 63% with the highest percentage in female physicians under 40 years of age.
According to the Commonwealth Fund which focuses on health care outcomes, the US was ranked last and close to last among developed nations in access, administrative efficiency, equity and healthcare outcomes but was found to spend the most money on health care. The World Health Organization ranking of healthcare systems ranked the US as number 37 after countries such as Columbia, Chile, Morocco and Costa Rica. The US is the only high income nation to lack universal healthcare.
As has been anecdotally reported, if you try to practice good medicine in a terrible health care system, you are going to get very frustrated, often to the point of burnout.
What can physicians suffering from the effects of burnout do to mitigate the situation? Experts suggest things like getting more sleep, giving yourself a mental break, avoiding excessive overtime work hours, learning to meditate, exercising regularly, learning to say no, learning to value the small things in life, recognizing that things could be worse, and learning better time management skills, just to name a few. These suggestions are great and can be effective as long as we also address the deficiencies of our health care system.
Burnout can be devastating and complicated and there are no simple quick solutions. As a physician who realized that I could be a victim of burnout, I decided to make what some would call risky changes. I quit my secured full-time employed position at a hospital based practice with all its benefits to be my own independent contractor or commonly known as a locums tenens provider. As a locums tenens physician, I can pretty much set my schedule and work 40 hour week. I do my job when I’m on the job without having to worry about if I’m going to be able to take time off for personal commitment. Since I decide on positions that require less patient load, I am able to develop deeper relationship with patients. They see that I am truly happy and that my work and being in their presence brings me joy. They know that I am there because I want to be there. I count it as a blessing that I can practice medicine the way I want, where I want and when I want.
Overall, a physician who isn't burned out has benefits. There is no perfect recipe. The first step is to acknowledge yourself and know what you need to to be fulfilled in your line of work and address any signs of burnout you may encounter.
Feeling accomplished after completing my first 5K for 2018