Effects on Clinician Health and Well-Being – Clinician Well-Being Knowledge Hub

Be Well: Preventing Physician Suicide

NAM — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 15:10:19 +0000

To shed light on physician suicide and highlight prevention strategies, this podcast series features stories of recovery and ideas for supporting colleagues struggling with thoughts of suicide.

A Nurse’s Guide to Preventing Compassion Fatigue, Moral Distress, and Burnout

NAM — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 14:31:30 +0000

How can you develop resilience and stay motivated in the face of constantly increasing demands and infuse meaning and joy into your practice? Tune into this recording of the special live event as experts share the latest neuroscience, behavioral and organizational research and strategies.

Physician Burnout & Moral Injury: The Hidden Health Care Crisis

NAM — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 18:52:51 +0000

This infographic explores physician burnout and moral injury both before and during COVID-19, top causes for burnout, the mental health stigma that still exists in the medical community, the impact for patients and the health care system, and what can be done to address this growing crisis.

A Call to Action: Improving Clinician Well-Being and Patient Care and Safety

NAM — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 13:18:44 +0000

The Health Policy Institute of Ohio collaborated with The Ohio State University College of Nursing Helene Fuld Health Trust National Institute for Evidence-based Practice in Nursing and Healthcare to create A Call to Action: Improving Clinician Well-Being and Patient Care and Safety. The Call to Action outlines the bi-directional relationship between clinician well-being and patient care, calls attention to the health problems clinicians face related to burnout, and highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts. As part of this approach, state policymakers and healthcare leaders have an important role in implementing evidence-informed policies and practices such as advancing positive organizational culture, promoting wellness programs, reducing stigma toward seeking mental health treatment, increasing access to mental health services, and monitoring the data on student and clinician wellness.

Measuring Our Values – Redoubling on a Commitment to Physician Health

NAM — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 16:11:36 +0000

Among the most telling statistics, suicide is the second leading cause of resident physician death. Growing health care costs, worsening physician shortages, along with a growing population needing health care, are factors to rethink in providing valuable physician training programs. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study that surveyed residency programs. Policies that allowed “flexible” duty hours (did not specify limits on shift length or mandatory time off between shifts) had negative impacts on overall well-being. Efforts should be made to ensure that trainees have the flexibility in their schedules to access mental health resources. The organizational and systemic factors that contribute to adverse mental health outcomes is a primary focus for physicians at all levels.

Burnout and Resilience: A Framework for Data Analysis and a Positive Path Forward

NAM — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 20:47:41 +0000

More than half of U.S. physicians experience one or more symptoms of burnout, and research indicates that the symptoms of burnout can spread like a virus through an organization. Fortunately, the same social networking science that explains the spread of negative emotions can be applied to disseminate positive ones as well.The following white paper deconstructs burnout into actionable components, examines the inter-dependencies across these components, measures the clinician experience with respect to each of these attributes, and presents interventions to enhance caregivers’ resilience and reduce their vulnerability to burnout. “

Burnout: Don’t Blame the Clinicians; Blame the System

NAM — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 20:44:22 +0000

Physician burnout is the depression of the medical world, and experienced by 50% of physicians. In order to combat this epidemic, physicians should be screened for depressing with scales such as the PHQ-9, on an annual basis, and receive education to help them to be aware of signs of burnout in themselves. After identifying burnout and the extend of the problem, systematic solutions to address the problem, such as improving workflow, lessening burden of physician tasks, and allowing physicians to “trade time”, need to be implemented. Until conscious, systematic efforts are made to put the pieces back together for physicians, they will continue in a vicious cycle of provider dissatisfaction, poor clinical outcomes, and patient dissatisfaction.

Physicians Experience Highest Suicide Rate of Any Profession

NAM — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 20:39:07 +0000

The following article summarizes a systematic literature review of physician suicide, which shows that the suicide rate among physicians is more than double that in the general population and is not restricted to North America. The review covers both common obstacles to seeking medical treatment such as stigma, as well as the common factors that contribute to physician suicide. The very high rate of physician suicide is both alarming and not very surprising, given the stressors physicians face, beginning in medical school and residency, which is further exacerbated by dwindling healthcare resources and residency positions.

The Burnout Crisis in American Medicine

NAM — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 20:30:00 +0000

The following article, published in The Atlantic, explores the contribution of electronic medical records and demanding regulations to a historic doctor shortage. For many doctors, attention is often consumed by challenges of coordination rather than patient care, and patients will often experience delays not for any medical reason, but simply because of an inflexible computer system and a poor workflow. The increasingly high demands of regulations and operations of medicine consume doctors’ practice, and leads to burnout and high turnovers. A health-care organization’s success, in the years ahead, will depend on its success at delegating responsibilities among physicians and non-physicians, training the non-physicians to do their work independently, and empowering everyone—not just doctors—to shape a patient’s care and be accountable for the results.

Suicided Doctor: Covered Up With a Tarp—and Silence.

NAM — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 20:10:28 +0000

The following article advocates for the need to hold medical systems and communities accountable for understanding why physician suicides occur. The author, Pamela Wible WD, shares emails and personal narratives presented to her from physicians and their loved ones, struggling to cope with, understand, and prevent suicides among physicians. Suicide among doctors is a global epidemic, and must be appropriately addressed through open communication, support groups, and fearless leadership within hospitals.