Trending issues in medicine 2015 – #1 Burnout

This report provides more evidence of the importance of these factors, with bureaucratic tasks and spending too many hours at work rated as the most frequent causes of burnout, with scores of 4.74 and 3.99, respectively, based on a scale of 1 (“not at all important”) to 7 (“extremely important”). In fact, being able to control work hours is increasingly found to play an important role in reducing stress and, therefore, burnout among physicians.[7-9] This year, insufficient income (3.71) and computerization (3.68) were also found to be important causes of burnout. One study found that PCPs with the highest number of electronic medical record functions also experienced the highest amount of stress.[10] Of interest, the Affordable Care Act dropped to fifth place as a burnout cause this year, from third place in the 2013 Medscape report. While many medical organizations (including ACP, AAFP, AMA and SGIM) are working diligently to address this issue, we do not see relief coming from the bureaucracies.  My previous posts represent a glimpse into the problem.  But one should sit and talk with practicing physicians (either in private practice or academic centers) and they the listener will feel the frustration. My good friend Mark Linzer is one of the leading researchers of this phenomenon.  In my conversations with him, the loss of control has become a leading factor.  Physicians do not control the format of their notes.  Physicians are told to focus on...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs