The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) recently published a collection of articles on the topic of stress and burnout of healthcare professionals called, “Physician Burnout: The Root of the Problem and the Path to Solutions.” I read this collection of essays and summarized my findings below.

Potential Physical Implications of Burnout Burnout—defined as persistent emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue and cognitive weariness—may negatively affect physical health more than previously believed.

When a healthcare organization acquires a medical practice or organizations merge, both parties usually have intense hopes and expectations—some of them unrealistic. And the effect can be truly toxic. A successful approach to an M&A means finding ways for leadership and physicians to talk to each other and find solutions to [...]

Are you experiencing burnout? Ask yourself these questions: Are you too tired to spend time with your family and/or friends? Do you seem to have more conflict at work and/or at home? Are you not able to “turn off” work and not think about your colleagues or patients? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may be [...]

Have you seen this happen? A physician had a colleague who decided to leave medicine. She was asked to pick up some of the slack for a short while. But time stretched on because hiring someone into the physician’s town wasn’t appealing, especially with the physician shortage. Then a new Electronic Health Records (EHR) system [...]

Mindfulness in Medicine In our 2015 Physician Stress and Burnout Survey Report, 46 percent of physicians reported severe stress and/or burnout. In a rapidly changing healthcare market, physician stress and burnout is likely going to increase. Stress and burnout leads to many concerns and issues for the physician—as well as [...]

Physician well being and engagement are crucial for quality of care, patient safety and satisfaction and many more valuable clinical and ethical outcomes. Organizations may pay a heavy price for physician burnout. As the AMA STEPS Forward™ website puts it, “The costs of burnout are widely under-recognized. Health professional [...]

Physician burnout is bred in isolation and silence. Practitioners suffering from it typically feel alone with their problems and are often hesitant to communicate their growing feelings of overwhelm, emotional exhaustion, lack of fulfillment and cynicism. But alert leaders can head off burnout by promoting a workplace culture [...]