An anthology of essential essays on physician well-being during sustained crisis

Patient-centered, high-quality health care relies on the well-being, health, and safety of health care clinicians. However, alarmingly high rates of clinician burnout in the United States are detrimental to the quality of care being provided, harmful to individuals in the workforce, and costly. It is important to take a systemic approach to address burnout that focuses on the structure, organization, and culture of health care. Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being builds upon two groundbreaking reports from the past twenty years, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, which both called attention to the issues around patient safety and quality of care. This report explores the extent, consequences, and contributing factors of clinician burnout and provides a framework for a systems approach to clinician burnout and professional well-being, a research agenda to advance clinician well-being, and recommendations for the field.

​This unique, step-by-step guide offers a comprehensive exploration of burnout and physician wellbeing, a vital issue that steadily has become widely discussed in the professional and mainstream press. More than twenty chapter authors contribute to this multidimensional volume, including physicians, psychologists, researchers, healthcare administrators, chaplains, professional coaches, and counselors. Section one of the book establishes context, provides a brief overview of the phenomenon of physician burnout, establishes its validity, and makes a case for the reason it has emerged as a critical issue in American healthcare. Section two provides a rationale for healthcare institutions (hospitals, physician groups, medical associations) to make a commitment to physician wholeness, while section three then starts the process of delineating a step-by-step curriculum to address the dilemma, providing additional detail and personal experience direct from the frontlines of combatting burnout. Section four focuses on developing and sustaining a healthy professional culture that is aligned with the mission of the organization, and section five addresses the spiritual component of physician wholeness, Section six concludes the book with two personal essays that poignantly express the nature of two common experiences affecting physicians that require uncommon insight, patience, courage. Transforming the Heart of Practice is a major contribution to the literature and will serve as an invaluable resource for anyone concerned with addressing this crisis in American healthcare.

The rising rate of physician burnout is contributing to an urgent public health crisis. Burnout devastates physicians, undermines patient care, and robs society of high-quality care and health care resources. This growing crisis has been tremendously exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed enormous strain on health care providers in the face of uncertainty. Solutions are urgently needed, but to minimize the impacts to individual patient and overall public health, as well as to address physician well-being. This thesis utilized bioethical frameworks to identify and examine a partial solution to physician burnout by targeting medical students as future professionals. Specifically, utilitarianism and ethics of care are utilized to assess educational and professional culture interventions, based on a review of existing literature, which identified a particularly promising, novel approach to managing medical student well-being that can be carried forward into practice.

Calming fears, alleviating suffering, enhancing and saving lives -- this is what motivates doctors virtually every single day. When the structure and culture in which physicians work are well aligned, being a doctor is a most rewarding job. But something has gone wrong in the physician world, and it is urgent that we fix it. Fundamental flaws in the US health care system make it more difficult and less rewarding than ever to be a doctor. The convergence of a complex amalgam of forces prevents primary care and specialty physicians from doing what they most want to do: Put their patients first at every step in the care process every time. Barriers include regulation, bureaucracy, the liability burden, reduced reimbursements, and much more. Physicians must accept the responsibility for guiding our nation toward a better health care delivery system, but the pathway forward -- amidst jarring changes in our health care system -- is not always clear. In The Doctor Crisis, Dr. Jack Cochran, executive director of The Permanente Federation, and author Charles Kenney show how we can improve health care on a grassroots level, regardless of political policy disputes, by improving conditions for physicians and asking them to take on broader accountability; by calling on physicians to be effective leaders as well as excellent clinicians. The authors clarify the necessary steps required to enable physicians to focus on patient care and offer concrete ideas for establishing systems that place patients' needs above all else. Cochran and Kenney make a compelling case that fixing the doctor crisis is a prerequisite to achieving access to quality and affordable health care throughout the United States.

The figures are stark: 10-15 years after entering medical school, the average physician has twice the level of burnout of the average professional. Suicide rates among physicians are 1.4 and 2 times higher than in the general population for men and women, respectively. Physician Well-Being argues that the major reasons for physician distress are organizational and systemic and focuses on solutions that work. The guide focuses its gaze on the range of the provider experience, from pre-med programs and practice settings that include a large health system and multidisciplinary clinic to specific scenarios such as medical marriages. Through fictional but realistic and nuanced case studies, it proposes solutions designed to make today's typical health care environments more effective. Concise literature reviews highlight each chapter's most salient points, and detailed lists of references serve as springboards for further exploration. Throughout the volume, wisdom gleaned from the author's 30-year career as a psychiatrist--during which he has treated hundreds of physicians as patients--makes a powerful case for changes in the culture and process of medicine that are essential for improving both provider well-being and patient care and safety.

Mayo Clinic Strategies to Reduce Burnout: 12 Actions to Create the Ideal Workplace tells the story of the evolving journey of those in the medical profession. It dwells not on the story of burnout, distress, compassion fatigue, moral injury, and cognitive dissonance but rather on a narrative of hope for professional fulfillment, well-being, joy, and camaraderie. Achieving this aim requires health care professionals and administrative leaders working together to create the ideal workplace-through nurturing positivity and pushing negativity aside. The ultimate aspiration is esprit de corps-the common spirit existing in members of a group that inspires enthusiasm, devotion, loyalty, camaraderie, engagement, and strong regard for the welfare of the team and of common interests and responsibilities. Mayo Clinic Strategies to Reduce Burnout: 12 Actions to Create the Ideal Workplace provides a road map for you to create esprit de corps for your team and organization. The map is paved with information about reliable, patient-centered, and thoughtful systems embedded within psychologically safe and just cultures. The authors drew on their extensive research on the well-being of health care professionals; from their experience in quality, department operations, leadership and organization development, management, safe havens, and care teams; and from their roles as president, chief wellness officer, chief quality officer, chair, principal investigator, senior fellow, and board director.

This book explores the important topic of mental health and related problems among physicians, including trainees. The all-too-common human response of “suffering in silence” and refusing to seek help for professional and personal issues has ramifications for physicians who work in safety-sensitive positions, where clear-headed judgment and proper action can save lives. Problems covered include burnout, disruptive and unprofessional behaviors, impaired performance, traumatic stress, addiction, depression and other mood disorders, and suicide. The authors of this work include psychologists, psychiatrists, and other physicians who diagnose and treat a range of patients with stress-related syndromes. Among their patients are physicians who benefit greatly from education, support, coaching, and treatment. The book's content is organized into three parts with interconnecting themes. Part I focuses on symptoms and how physicians’ problems manifest at the workplace. Part II discusses the disorders underlying the manifesting symptoms. Part III focuses on interventions at both the individual and organizational levels. The major themes investigated throughout the book are developmental aspects; mental health and wellbeing as a continuum; and the multifactorial contributions of individual, interpersonal, organizational, and cultural elements to physician health. This book is intended for anyone who works with, provides support to, or professionally treats distressed physicians. It is also intended for healthcare leaders and organizations that are motivated to improve the experience of providing care and to change the culture of silence, such that seeking help and counsel become normal activities while minimizing stigma. By writing this book, the authors aim to outline effective pathways to well-being and a healthy work-life balance among physicians, so that they may provide optimal and safe care to their patients.

Burnout is a major psychological and physical health-related problem for workers in all fields, but especially for those in the fast-paced and rapidly changing world of healthcare. Burnout has severe consequences for patients, including medical error, and is a leading contributing cause of depression and suicide among healthcare workers. Organizational science is just beginning to be applied in earnest to physician burnout and patient safety, and holds several potential keys to addressing these concerns. The Burned Out Physician is for two groups: healthcare workers (especially physicians) and patients. Physicians will use this book to get an accurate picture of what they are experiencing and how to change it, and patients will use this book to see what their healthcare providers are experiencing and learn how to help and/or protect themselves. The volume includes a checklist of burnout symptoms, and crucially a list of solutions as part of an active effort to solve the burnout crisis.

“I love the realistic, relatable, and all-encompassing content; it’s raw, it’s real, and brutally honest!” said one reviewer. “Are you sure you want to put this in print?” asked another. YES! was our unequivocal answer. We appreciate your boldness in choosing this absolutely uncensored book, The Other Side of Burnout: Solutions for Healthcare Professionals, and we know you will find answers here! • Read about our personal experiences with physician burnout. • Explore our assessment of the real causes of burnout— beyond the traditional concepts of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished sense of personal achievement. • Learn sensible, tangible, implementable, and useful solutions for conquering burnout. This book is guaranteed to spark meaningful conversations with your fellow physicians and healthcare organizations. Best of all, The Other Side of Burnout: Solutions for Healthcare Professionals is a quick, concise read, because we understand that you are already stretched thin!