Chapter 16 - Saving the Burned-Out Physician

Summary

Burnout among physicians and other healthcare providers is a crisis of epic proportions, both in the United States and in other countries as well. Of the many negative outcomes of this stress-related syndrome – and there are many – medical error is especially troubling. Doctors and others who are experiencing the syndrome are more likely to make mistakes, which can be fatal. Potential solutions to reducing the risk of burnout include individual strategies for stress management, team-based strategies for mutual support, and profoundly impactful systems-based strategies at the level of the local organization and more broadly at the national/governmental levels. The adaptive improvement model (AIM) provides a simple, user-friendly structure for identifying burnout-reduction actions aimed at individual, team, or system levels. More broadly, capturing and learning from the lessons of the pandemic will help all of us be more resilient when that immediate crisis is finally past, and we are into the “next normal.”