The Real Solution To Burnout

One of my favorite things these days is the concept (or is it diagnosis?) of burnout.  It seems to be a popular topic in medical and psychiatric news these days.  In the Psychiatric Times January 2016 edition, Editor in Chief Allan Tasman, MD published a column on burnout entitled My New Years Prescription for You.  He goes on to detail the syndrome and what can be done about it.  He points out the high prevalence of burnout in physicians including house staff, physicians in general and psychiatrists.  These studies generally depend on checklist surveys of symptoms suggestive of "burnout."  Dr. Tasman points out that they are relatively nonspecific and people may not see psychiatrists about burnout until there are more recognizable syndromes of anxiety or depression.

My problem with the concept of burnout is that it doesn't accurately describe the problem.  As I think back on some of my most engaging clinical rotations in training - the teams frequently worked to the point of exhaustion.  The attending came in the next day.  There was an air of collegiality and a lot of learning occurred.  There was a lot of dark humor on the part of house staff.  There was an understanding that all of this exhausting work would end some day when you made the transition to a staff or attending physicians and could work more normal hours.  That was the late 1980s and early 1990s.  As politicians and business people wrested control away from physicians, suddenly most physicians continue to work like they are house staff.  Senior physicians in their 60s are suddenly taking all night call and working 60-70 hours per week.  Hospitalist services were invented requiring physicians to work 7 days on and 7 days off - another exhausting schedule.  I have observed to many of these physicians that they are working like they did when they were house staff - interns and residents.  They numbly shake their heads in the affirmative when I ask them that question.  They also acknowledge the fact that by day 6, their cognitive capacity is markedly diminished.  Suddenly it takes them twice as long to do tasks especially all of the documentation.

The reference to Studer in the Tasman article is interesting.  I don't know if any other physicians have had to suffer through a business consultant-based inservice on how to improve "customer satisfaction scores".  There are discussions on how to introduce yourself to the "customer".  There are the usual business based mnemonics.  Physicians may actually have to demonstrate that they know how to introduce themselves to "customers"!  Think about that for a second, especially if you are a psychiatrist who was trained for years in how to interact with patients rather than customers.  If you are a psychiatrist who passed the oral boards,  you know that failing to make the appropriate introduction led to an immediate failure on that exam.  Now flash forward to the bizarre world where patients are "customers" and now there is a formula designed by business people who know relatively nothing about interacting with patients in a therapeutic manner.   You are expected to demonstrate competency in this shallow business paradigm that is setup to optimize results on customer satisfaction surveys.  This is a great example of how physicians are stressed on a regular basis in health care organizations and their time is wasted.  It is also a great example of how public relations, rather than the latest medical knowledge is the dominant performance metric for healthcare organizations.  If there is a recipe for burnout - this is it.

The dynamics of burnout are the dynamics of many clinical situations that psychiatrists try to address.  The referrals are people with chronic depression or depression that seems to have occurred as a result of a sudden change in their life circumstances.  A common scenario is an unreasonable employer or work supervisor.  I will understand it if the employers jump in here and say that they are entitled to tell people how they want them to work for their salary or that their employees are free to find another job.  Those are political arguments that I don't really care about.  Those arguments are also improbable ways of addressing burnout.

When I am faced with person who is chronically anxious and depressed, chronically sleep deprived due to forced swing shifts or double shifts, is dealing with an obnoxious demanding boss, and is not able to change jobs for economic or insurance reasons - I know the patient and I are up against a wall.  I speculate that there are millions of people in this situation who are diagnosed with one anxiety or depressive disorder or another or chronic insomnia and who are trying to get some kind of treatment to alleviate this stress.  There is no evidence that I am aware of that treatment that targets what is basically a chronic stress response is effective.  There may be some small incremental changes if people feel supported and are getting active feedback in therapy about how to deal with the stress in realistic ways, how the dynamics may have personal meaning, and how to reframe the stressful relationships but many people are likely to stay in treatment for the diagnosis for months or years and have little to show for it.  Many people have the expectation that there is a medication that will restore their ability to function in this situation and not require any significant changes on their part.  That is completely false.

That brings me to the issue of physician burnout.  Burnout is more than the clinical diagnoses that are used to describe people who are experiencing chronic workplace stress.  The current work environment for physicians is designed to produce burnout, anxiety, depression, and all of the associated comorbidity.  One of the central dynamics is administrators with no medical knowledge creating an environment that moves physicians away from patients and creates an onerous clerical and administrative burden.  The large increase in managers has created an environment that is both hostile and full of busy work.  The idea that this is something that can be overcome with medications, meditation, exercise, lifestyle management or psychotherapy leaves a lot to be desired.  It is time that psychiatrists focus on an optimized environment for mental and physical well being rather than than trying to treat the fallout from some of those horrific scenarios.

Addressing burnout in physicians is more than a health and wellness consult.  It is more than a weekend retreat to a local resort.  It is more than "lifestyle changes" when you don't have enough time to have a life.  It is a lot more than going on vacation and realizing that on the day you come back - it is like you never left.  Optimizing the work environment for physicians rather than treating burnout is a good place to start.  Recognizing this when it happens in our patients is also more useful than treating it like depression.



George Dawson, MD, DFAPA