President’s Message
WORCESTER MEDICINE
Workforce Vitality
Resiliency: An Essential Skill for Preventing Burnout and Compassion Fatigue Nancy McCool, LICSW, ACHP-SW,AHPSW-C Dear colleagues, As the new academic year swings back into high gear, we have in this issue of Worcester Medicine a review and dissection of a phenomenon which is an indirect threat to the public’s health: burnout within the healthcare workforce. Doctors, like many healthcare people, have always worked hard and had trouble maintaining what is now known as work-life balance. But this is a curiously modern affliction in medical personnel - curious because we live and work in a time when access to knowledge and specialized consultation and physicians’ ability to treat injury and illness successfully have never been greater. Yet the problem seems to worsen as our skills, tools and technical resources improve. Perhaps it devolves from the stress of constant monitoring and a zero defects quality of care culture imposed on physicians as much as developed and accepted by them. Perhaps it is due to shifting societal expectations around child rearing, prestige or income, or even customer service. Perhaps it results from a larger proportion of physicians being employed rather than working for themselves so that it feels their practices are not theirs and not within their control. Likely the increasing amounts of non-medical bureaucratic work to ensure their patients get the tests, procedures, and medicines they need play a significant role too. It may be that different issues drive burnout differently in different generations of physicians. In any event, solutions have been elusive. In this issue edited by Dr. Steven Bird we are guided through the topic and an array of interesting potential palliatives which we all hope will help with this problem. As the fall kicks in, we are finalizing our annual calendar for 2023-2024. We have fantastic keynote speakers lined up and expect you will find our events to be educational and riveting and are excited to see you all in person. + Giles Whalen, MD, President, WDMS
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he Covid-19 epidemic exacerbated the already critical situation of burnout and compassion fatigue among healthcare providers. Today, healthcare systems continue to struggle to hire and maintain a skilled workforce. Proposed solutions for supporting staff include proactive mental health treatment and support for caregivers experiencing burnout and improvements to the efficiency of electronic health records.
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…routine self-care has historically seen poor participation among healthcare workers… A large part of the attraction for those who choose to work in healthcare is compassion satisfaction. It derives from caregivers’ positive feelings about their ability to help others, and it also includes feelings of camaraderie among colleagues and the significance felt from contributing to the greater good. When burnout and compassion fatigue erode compassion satisfaction, self-care strategies are one of the most effective and extensively recommended methods for attaining it. Unfortunately, routine self-care has historically seen poor participation among healthcare workers, due in no small part to the culture of the medical field surrounding emotional exhaustion, which is seen as “just part of the job”. Clinicians may be aware that stress is an occupational hazard but may not be aware of just how much they have been affected by it. Stigma and isolation are barriers to the success of well-being efforts, and the ethos that vulnerability is a sign of weakness is reinforced regularly. As a result, programs that rely on self-referral often fail because they require clinicians to admit they need help, thus reinforcing the stigma around asking for it.
Fall 2023
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