Healthcare needs to heal the healer

by Thomas Dahlborg "I'm a family doc in Eugene, Ore., where we've lost three physicians in 18 months to suicide. I was suicidal once. Assembly-line medicine was killing me. Too many patients and not enough time sets us up for failure." There are many studies highlighting the harm our broken healthcare system is doing to patients--e.g., hospital errors occurring in one-third of all hospital admissions; medical mistakes contributing to up to 187,135 deaths and 6.1 million injuries; an estimated annual cost of measurable preventable medical errors of $17.1 billion (based on 2008 dollars). But what about the harm caregivers face? Many studies have highlighted the fact that physicians have a significantly elevated suicide rate in comparison to other professionals. In her article "What I've learned from saving physicians from suicide," Pamela Wible, M.D., highlights that not only are doctors overworked, exhausted and depressed, but few are seeking help. As noted in the past (and exemplifying many similar conversations), a physician friend of mine from a well-known, local health care system confided in me that he was so tired and burned out that he was thinking of leaving the practice of medicine. As a primary care physician, he was feeling his role had moved further away from that of a healer and more toward a "production worker." Rather than focus his energy on best positioning his patients for optimal healing, he was pressured to triple book every 15 minutes to generate t...
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs