Building Resilience in Clinicians to Prevent Burnout

by Arif KamalOn the topic of palliative care clinician wellness, we are starting to recognize that there is some good news to counter all the bad. First, the bad news. If you ’re reading this, and you believe that burnout has not touched your professional life, then it is likely that the colleagues sitting to the immediate left and right of you are not so lucky. Recent survey data of over 1300 palliative care clinicians highlight a sobering statistic: almost two-thir ds of our colleagues report burnout (Kamal JPSM 2016). This is among the highest rate of all medical disciplines, and significantly higher than the 45% average burnout rate of physicians outside our specialty (Shanafelt JAMA IM 2012). Burnout, explicitly stated, is a leading cause of palliative care clinicians opting to leave the field, second only to usual retirement. Those reading these statistics are likely not surprised; compassionately caring for persons with serious illness often on the worst days of their life can take a toll on our emotional health. A growing appreciation of the downstream effects of unchecked burnout on the ability to deliver timely, high quality palliative care has elevated the issue to nothing short of a crisis for our field.But there ’s also good news. Enter resilience, stage left. Resilience is the “capacity to meet challenges, recover from difficulties, and thrive at work; built from skills, not reflective of traits.” Of that definition, the last part is the most important....
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: burnout kamal The profession Source Type: blogs