Editors: Kacey Montgomery, M.D. | Erica Huffman, Executive Director
www.escambiacms.org
MARCH/APRIL 2020 VOLUME 50, NO. 2
CONTENTS
Just what is “physician burnout”? Do I have it? Am I going to get it? How will I know if I get it and what do I do about it if I do get it? I had never heard the term “physician burnout” until two years ago at an ECMS meeting and honestly didn’t know anything about the subject until I began reading articles and information for this newsletter. In 2019 Medscape surveyed more than 15,000 physicians across 29 specialties and found that 44% of all physicians reported feeling burned out. Fifty percent of women physicians surveyed reported feeling burnout and 39% of the men physicians reported feeling burned out. The top six specialties reporting burnout were urology, neurology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, internal medicine, emergency medicine and family medicine. When asked about the biggest contributors to burnout, 59% of doctors blamed it on too many bureaucratic tasks and 34% blamed it on too many hours spent at work. Many physicians reported struggling with their EMR (electronic medical record) and felt they spent too much time practicing “desktop medicine” and spent twice the amount of time staring at their computer screen than interacting with the patient. This is not what most of us envisioned when we signed up for this job. Dr. Dike Drummond, author of Burnout Prevention Matrix, believes that burnout originates from a disorder of energy and compares burnout to an energy bank account. Our bank accounts store our physical, emotional and spiritual energy that we use every single day. When we are at work, there are withdrawals from out energy accounts. Unless we are able to replenish our energy accounts, we will eventually have a negative balance in our accounts which is the definition of burnout. Our energy bank account is different from a battery, because when batteries run out, they stop working. When physicians’ batteries run out, they often don’t stop working and continue to operate in a negative balance. So why should we care if a physician has burnout? Burnout is directly linked to many undesirable consequences including lower patient satisfaction, lower quality of patient care, higher medical errors, higher malpractice risk, higher physician and staff turnover, physician substance abuse, and physician suicide. That’s right… burnout can be deadly! Suicide rates for both men and women are higher in physicians than the general population. If burnout is such a serious subject, then why is it just now being recognized
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