Dr. Wei reached out and engaged a few other women faculty at her medical center who were committed to transform the culture so that others wouldn’t have to experience the high degree of burnout she had. She began teaching a course on how to identify burnout, potential low morale and other problems that can contribute to a lower quality of life as an otolaryngologist, and she resurrected the University of Kansas School of Medicine’s Women in Medicine and Science organization. She’s been president of the group for the past three years. “I am now passionate about fighting the realities of what my life and career demands are and want to help others,” she said. “But most of all, I am constantly aware that I am so close to reaching a high degree of burnout again. The more you do, the more you do, so it’s a constant battle.”
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November 2012Next Steps
Burnout can manifest in personal or professional dysfunction, resulting in medical or surgical errors, drug and alcohol dependency or leaving or changing one’s career, said Dr. Wei. “We must work on supporting ourselves and colleagues by increasing awareness and including it as a competency so we can protect our field.
“Many of us are overachievers and give 100 percent to our patients and everyone else except ourselves,” she added. “We have to educate our trainees, and we must continue to measure degree of burnout through research. Get educated; learn about it. Take courses. Talk to those who have studied, written and—most of all—experienced it. Self awareness is the first step to healing.”
Academic Burnout
A 2009 study found that the factors that contribute to physician burnout tend to vary based on career type and practice setting, as well as on which aspect of work a physician finds most meaningful (Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(10):990-995). Researchers found that 34 percent of the faculty physicians at an academic medical center they surveyed met the criteria for burnout.
Further, the researchers found that these faculty members may be able to avoid burnout if they spend at least 20 percent of their time—typically one day a week—on an aspect of their work that they find most personally meaningful. Those who were able to do so had a rate of burnout roughly half that of those who spent less than 20% effort in the activity that was most meaningful to them.
“These findings have important implications for the administrative leadership and department chairs at academic medical centers. These centers are responsible for training the next generation of physicians, for serving as the primary origin of scientific discovery and advances in the fields of medicine and health care delivery and for providing tertiary medical care to patients with complex and unusual health care problems. Their physician faculty is the most critical resource for academic medical centers to discharge these responsibilities to society,” the authors concluded. “These findings suggest that efforts to optimize career fit among the physician faculty members at academic medical centers may be important elements of programs to promote physician satisfaction and to reduce attrition from academic medicine.”