Why your doctor may be quilting and your nurse may have a podcast

Comic artist and physician Dr. Grace Farris asked fellow doctors, nurses and others in medicine how they are coping with the prolonged stress. Many say their creative outlets provide solace and community to help them through.

Doctors Are Human Too

The job of a doctor in training is unspeakable. It is hard to find the words to describe what we do. It is hard to work out whom to tell. We cannot speak of these things to people outside medicine because it is too traumatic, too graphic, too much. But we cannot speak of these things within medicine, either, because it is not enough, it is just the job we do, hardly worth commenting on.

For the Young Doctor About to Burn Out

Professional burnout is the sum total of hundreds and thousands of tiny betrayals of purpose, each one so minute that it hardly attracts notice.

How Medical Schools Can Better Fight Burnout

Burnout is a worrisome crisis throughout the medical profession, but there is something uniquely troubling about the fact that medical students experience pressures so great that they burn out on the profession before they’ve even joined it.

How Patients Can Help Prevent Physician Burnout

With 40% of a clinic visit spent on clerical tasks, relieving administrative duties represents an opportunity to give clinicians some time back. So who can help? Look no further than the patient, the one constant in a health-care journey.

Physician Burnout - The Fatal Flaws in the Burnout Survey Industry

Every little scrap of what we know about physician burnout prevalence comes from this small slice of volunteers from each of the total “N” of the surveyed group.

Physician Burnout and Well-Being: A Systematic Review and Framework for Action

Physician burnout in the United States has reached epidemic proportions and is rising rapidly, although burnout in other occupations is stable. Its negative impact is far reaching and includes harm to the burned-out physician, as well as patients, coworkers, family members, close friends, and healthcare organizations.

Physician Burnout Rates Top 50 Percent (And That’s Not the Worst Finding)

In our work with thousands of over stressed and burned out doctors, it has been clear that burnout rates in the USA have been rising in the last several years. There is just too much political chaos, marketplace M&A activity and documentation overload for it to be otherwise.

The Root of Physician Burnout

Incentivizing with money is a self-fulfilling prophecy of cynicism. We must promote compassion, courage, and wisdom among our physicians before we "make a sordid business of this high and sacred calling."

The Story Behind Epidemic Doctor Burnout And Suicide Statistics

The Mayo Clinic released a study on doctor burnout that resulted in a spate of articles last month (e.g., Forbes, Washington Post). Not only are the statistics jarring, the individual stories are gripping.

The Widespread Problem of Doctor Burnout

Research over the last 10 years has shown that burnout – the particular constellation of emotional exhaustion, detachment and a low sense of accomplishment – is widespread among medical students and doctors-in-training.

Why Doctors Are Sick of Their Profession

American physicians are increasingly unhappy with their once-vaunted profession, and that malaise is bad for their patients.

Why So Many Doctors Are Experiencing Burnout -- And Some Potential Solutions

There are many potential reasons for the high rate of burnout and other issues that physicians struggle with.

The Burnout Crisis in American Medicine

Are electronic medical records and demanding regulations contributing to a historic doctor shortage?

Lorna Breen was the quintessential canary in the coal mine

Dr. Lorna Breen, who died by suicide on April 26, was the canary in the coal mine. You can see it in her eyes, and in her smile. I didn’t know her, but I’ll bet she sang. One of her causes was successful communication with autistic patients, something beyond most emergency physicians. She was a leader in a profession and a specialty already reeling under the occupational syndrome of moral injury that is dismissively labeled “burnout,” too often mistakenly deemed to be a personal inadequacy rather than what it really is: a massive organizational failure.