In this must read article for med students, residents and physicians alike, a surgeon describes her experience with developing burnout and depression on the job, and the immense difficulties she faced in trying to recover while working and even in taking a leave of absence from her job. More so though, the anonymous surgeon calls for all of us in the medical field to remember that we are human and that we need to care for ourselves first before we have the ability to care for our patients.
"The result of burnout is depression. Mine was a deep, dark hole that sucked all the life out of me. I wanted, more than anything, to feel again — joy, sadness, anger, anything. I couldn’t look after myself. And, I certainly couldn’t look after patients. But, that was what I was forced to do. I told my chief of staff I was struggling and needed time off. They told me they would try to find a locum to cover my on-call responsibilities.
But, in the meantime, I was to carry on. Despite medications, my depression continued and worsened. It was exacerbated by work...
I am pleased to see the increasing awareness of physician burnout and availability of resiliency training. But, it’s not enough. It’s time to change physician work hours, so we have time to recover from the stress and emotional trauma. It’s time to trust our colleagues to look after our patients evenings and weekends when we’re not on call. And, it’s time to applaud physicians that don’t go to work when they are sick and build a system with enough human resources to fill in the gaps. Greater manpower makes it easier to fill in the gaps when those left behind aren’t already exhausted themselves. Working exhausted and stressed to a breaking point is unacceptable. It’s not just us that suffer. It’s our families, our friends, and our patients."
For the full article, click here: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2016/01/surgeon-loves-job-killing.html
"The result of burnout is depression. Mine was a deep, dark hole that sucked all the life out of me. I wanted, more than anything, to feel again — joy, sadness, anger, anything. I couldn’t look after myself. And, I certainly couldn’t look after patients. But, that was what I was forced to do. I told my chief of staff I was struggling and needed time off. They told me they would try to find a locum to cover my on-call responsibilities.
But, in the meantime, I was to carry on. Despite medications, my depression continued and worsened. It was exacerbated by work...
I am pleased to see the increasing awareness of physician burnout and availability of resiliency training. But, it’s not enough. It’s time to change physician work hours, so we have time to recover from the stress and emotional trauma. It’s time to trust our colleagues to look after our patients evenings and weekends when we’re not on call. And, it’s time to applaud physicians that don’t go to work when they are sick and build a system with enough human resources to fill in the gaps. Greater manpower makes it easier to fill in the gaps when those left behind aren’t already exhausted themselves. Working exhausted and stressed to a breaking point is unacceptable. It’s not just us that suffer. It’s our families, our friends, and our patients."
For the full article, click here: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2016/01/surgeon-loves-job-killing.html
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