There is a disease sweeping the nation that has significant consequences for every person living in this country, even if they never contract it directly. And despite its lethality, there is precious little being done about it. It’s called physician burnout, and it affects all of us.
Doctors, on average, spend at least eight years in college, followed by years of postgraduate training during which time they work 80 hours a week. They graduate with a mountain of debt, face the constant fear of malpractice litigation, and are burdened by incessant demands to see more patients in less time with more administrative paperwork. On top of which, there’s compassion fatigue – helping the sick, the injured and the dying is rewarding no doubt, but often emotionally draining. All of this leads to physician burnout.
More than any other profession, doctors face burnout, and the rates have been increasing. A recent study by researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that the number of physicians suffering from burnout is 54%, up from 45% in 2011. And physicians are more than twice as likely to commit suicide than non-physicians; every year, 400 doctors in this country take their own lives.
Why should you care? Because the emotional health of doctors has a direct effect on the broader public. There are a plethora of stories of physicians who describe the chilling consequences of their depression. One surgeon wrote in a recent blog, “my depression…was exacerbated by work. I clearly wasn’t performing to the best of my abilities, and my patient complications and complaints were increasing. A patient died from a post-operative bleed. Would I have managed it better if I wasn’t suffering myself? (When I spoke to the patient’s wife, as he lay dying 20 feet away, she asked me if I was OK.)” Burnout causes a lack of clarity in thinking leading to medical mistakes. “Given the extensive evidence that burnout among physicians has effects on quality of care, patient satisfaction, turnover, and patient safety, these findings have important implications for society at large,” researchers from Mayo Clinic told Forbes.
