FEATURE
[CME] and helplines for students and residents, geared toward physician wellness.”
Physician self-awareness about stress and
burnout should be part of an open dialogue
from the beginning of medical school, she
contended, and physicians should be made
aware of the available resources for managing
burnout, such as helplines and professional
associations and societies.
Personally, Dr. Trollope-Kumar has
found peer support to be an invaluable tool
for building resilience. “I belong to a CME
group where we talk about advancing medical
education, but we inevitably talk about our
stressful cases or professional issues that we
are having difficulty with,” she said. “A support
system doesn’t have to be formal; it can be
done informally with a small group of physicians who meet on a regular basis.”
Are You and Your Job Compatible?
Finding the right fit is also key to preventing
burnout. Before settling on hematology/
oncology, Dr. Goldsborough considered
lifestyle and potential emotional involvement
when choosing her specialty, also taking into
account the daily schedule and pace of the
various specialties.
“I am fairly comfortable with end-of-life
appear to be concerns for all transplant
physicians, regardless of type of practice,” she
said. “The issues leading to burnout – including
the complexity of patients, high number of
working hours and nights on call, and amount
of administrative tasks – are common among
all types of practice.”
However, she noted, “transplant is
somewhat unique in that, although it is curative
therapy for many patients, it raises patients’ risk
for treatment-related morbidity and mortality
at the same time – particularly for those
patients undergoing allogeneic transplant.”
Risks for relapse or late complications could
lead to the need for ongoing chronic care.
Indeed, for survey respondents who were
dissatisfied with their career, “excessive hours,
insufficient salary, and the emotional drain of
caring for transplant recipients” were the most
commonly cited causes.
“While a long-term physician-patient
relationship is one of the joys of being a
transplanter, it is also emotionally difficult
when a patient struggles with or dies from
complications,” Dr. Burns added.
Crafting a Personal Prevention Plan
The first step to preventing burnout: Educating
people about what it is and what causes it.
“In training, the stress was mainly
from trying to impress attendings. As
a practicing physician, the stress is
from trying to always make the right
recommendations for patients.”
—KATY H. GOLDSBOROUGH, MD
prove efficiency, provide flexibility and control
over work, and help clinicians cultivate and
recognize meaning in their work can be useful,”
Dr. Shanafelt said. “The behaviors of organizational leaders have also been found to be a
critical factor on the personal satisfaction and
burnout of the physicians working within the
organization.”
Dr. Shanafelt urges physicians not just
to rely on the organizations they work for to
manage and mitigate burnout, but to step up
and address its causes on a personal level.
All of the clinicians we spoke with had
a common strategy to avoiding burnout:
Spending meaningful time outside of work
with family and friends.
For Dr. Goldsborough, that means striking
the right balance between work and life. “While
I devote some time to professional reading
and paperwork at home after my children go
to bed, it’s important that I reserve at least
an hour in the evening to unwind and do
something I enjoy.”
Dr. Linzer’s personal burnout prevention
plan, in addition to putting his 10-step plan
into practice, involves running multiple times
a week “by the lakes and streams of Minnesota,
and playing in our hospital band, the New
Prescriptions.”
For Dr. Burns, “my family helps me
mitigate burnout, as well as making time for
exercise, gardening, reading, and maintaining
friendships.”
“At the individual lev