What’s causing physician burnout? There’s no shortage of clickbaity listicles on the topic. This is not one of them. With the rate of physician suicides standing at double that of the general population, the issue deserves more attention than that. The key to understanding physician burnout is understanding why it happens, so we can determine how to stop it. That’s where Dike Drummond, MD, comes in. He’s a physician coach and consultant, helping doctors navigate their way through — and hopefully around — burnout. He’s the CEO of The Happy MD, author of Stop Physician Burnout and a burnout survivor himself, having walked away from a group practice in 2011 to start his company and help doctors. There is no simple solution to diagnosing and treating physician burnout, Drummond says. He does see distinct patterns in the stresses that cause burnout, however. The first is the practice of medicine itself, and the depletion of what he calls “the energetic bank account.” ‘Super Hero, Workaholic, Lone Ranger, Perfectionists’ “It’s very, very rare for a physician to walk out of their practice at the end of the day with the same energy as when they walked in,” he says. “The practice of medicine is stressful all by itself.” Job-specific stresses have to be considered as well. These include: EMRs, schedules, leadership quality and support staff caliber. Next — and most often overlooked — are personal lives. “People can burn out at work and absolutely nothing has changed about the work itself,” he says. “You think you’re stressed as a doctor, let’s give your wife breast cancer and see how that works.” He recommends one of the questions all leaders ask a burned out colleague early and often is, “How is it going at home?” Poor leadership is also often a factor. “People don’t quit the company, they quit their boss,” Drummond says. The final pattern Drummond sees is the conditioning created by healthcare education itself. “We’re conditioned to be super hero, workaholic, Lone Ranger, perfectionists,” Drummond says. “Nobody teaches the off switch on doctor. A workaholic only has one coping mechanism and that’s to work harder.” What Do We Do About It? Drummond says that organizations that employ physicians, chiefly hospitals, need to “complete the doctors’ medical education.” He explains: “Teach them everything about stress, stress management, burnout and burnout prevention so they can protect themselves against the number-one threat to their career: burnout. These topics are not in curriculum of med school or residency. Most doctors only learn how to take good care of themselves when they are recovering from their first episode of burnout.” “If a hospital employs physicians and other providers, it is the hospital/employer’s responsibility to complete their medical education, or sit back and just deal with the massive negative consequences of burnout in a bunch of doctors who don’t understand it or know how to protect themselves,” Drummond says. “It is very important to rebuild the social ties and human connections between doctors. We are much healthier when we have person to person connections with our colleagues. Some non-work-related ties. Most organizations don’t do a very good job of that,” Drummond says. “One of the things I insist is that if I am delivering a training to a group of doctors, the organization has to make it a full on social event with food, beverages and invite all significant others too.” If the organization takes these steps it can build the physician’s trust. “We’re in this together. You understand me. You have my back. I can trust you. That’s a huge piece that’s missing for most employee physicians.” We’re just getting started on the topic of physician burnout. Check back for more insights from Drummond on how millennials are holding up in the medical workforce, the unintended consequences of employed physicians, and spotting burnout in colleagues. TL;DR The five universal causes of physician burnout are: The practice of medicine, your specific job, your personal life, poor leadership and the conditioning of medical education. If medical professionals want to get serious about the issue, organizations that employ doctors need to complete physicians’ education to include stress management and burnout prevention, and employers need to build camaraderie in the medical ranks. Source
