Physician Burnout: How To Identify It As An Emergency Physician
According to an article from the Archives of Internal Medicine, physicians on the front line of patient care experience a higher rate of burnout than other medical specialties. This includes family medicine, general internal medicine, and emergency medicine.
In fact, emergency physicians experience burnout at a rate of 52%, according to the 2015 Medscape survey. As an emergency physician, does this surprise you? Do you feel the effects of burnout in your own career?
The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) has been recognized for more than a decade as the leading measure of burnout. The MBI Surveys address three general scales:
- Emotional exhaustion measure feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work.
- Depersonalization measures an unfeeling and impersonal response toward recipients of one's service, care treatment, or instruction.
- Personal accomplishment measures feelings of competence and successful achievement in one's work.
Let's look at each of these scales individually.