Many American surgeons are suffering from burnout. But what about emergency physicians?
Posted by Guest Blogger on Fri, Dec 04, 2009 @ 05:33 PM
By Ellis Weeker, M.D.
As an emergency physician who's no stranger to working long shifts, a recent study in the online version of the Annals of Surgery caught my eye. In it, nearly 9% of the 8,000 members surveyed from the American College of Surgeons said they'd made a major medical error or lapse in judgment within the last three months. The reason? The study found that 40% of the surgeons who responded said they were burned out and/or depressed.
The authors stated that in August, the same group of researchers reported in the Annals of Surgery that burnout is common among American surgeons and is the single greatest predictor of surgeons' satisfaction with career.
So what about emergency medicine - and the physicians who diligently work long, often stressful shifts? It's true that we talk about fatigue and long working hours. But as emergency physicians, what are we doing to ensure we're not becoming burnout cases or suffering from depression as the study suggests with surgeons?
Working in an emergency department is a mixture of exhilaration and challenge, which creates both physical and mental stress. Yet we know that patients in the emergency room need their treating physicians to be attentive, alert and at the top of their game. This means being fresh and not over-working ourselves - an ideal we don't always achieve.
Often emergency physicians try to squeeze as many shifts as possible into the beginning or end of a month to take a long stretch of time off in between. PAs and NPs also succumb to the siren sound of far away adventures, only achievable by taking long stretches of time off and then trying to cram as many shifts as possible into the remaining time frame to pay for it.
The other trap is to live beyond our means, causing us to work more shifts than we can tolerate, and reducing our effectiveness as physicians.
The antidote is to pace yourself. Remember, emergency medicine can be a long and satisfying career if you don't burn out. And you will provide better care to your patients.
Only work the number of shifts you can handle and don't try to compress them into short time frames. If you want to take a long vacation, place the extra shifts into other months of the year to compensate. And lastly, live within your means.
I look forward to your comments.