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:

1. Emotional exhaustion measure feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work.
2. Depersonalization measures an unfeeling and impersonal response toward recipients of one's service, care treatment, or instruction.
3. Personal accomplishment measures feelings of competence and successful achievement in one's work.

Let's look at each of these scales individually.

Inaugural EM Wellness Week Focuses on the Well-being of the Care-Giver

Created and spearheaded by the American College of Emergency Physicians, the 2016 Emergency Medicine Wellness Week™ is an opportunity all emergency physicians and their colleagues to take the time to self-renew while staying dedicated to the highest quality patient care. 

The inaugural event is slated for January 24-30, 2016. To participate, visit the website, www.acep.org/EMWellnessWeek, and sign up for daily wellness tips, print a personal pledge card, find resources and videos about better wellness, and share your stories of personal improvement.

“As emergency physicians, we care a lot about our patients. That’s why we chose this specialty. But all too often we are so busy caring for others, we forget to care about ourselves,” said ACEP President Jay A. Kaplan, MD, FACEP.  “We want this week to be about action rather than just ideas.  Everyone makes resolutions around the New Year; we hope that this week will help us and our colleagues make commitments to become more healthy, less burned out, and more resilient.” 

A Snapshot of An Emergency Physician's Life in Eastern Connecticut

Located in beautiful eastern Connecticut, Northeast Emergency Medicine Specialists (NEMS) is a democratic physician partnership that has been providing excellence in Emergency Medicine since 2008. They work with more than 30 providers at two practice locations -- Windham Hospital and Johnson Memorial Hospital. As a result, NEMS cares for over 58,000 patients annually.

NEMS is one of three independent, democratic and physician-owned groups within Connecticut. According to the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), a benefit to being a part of a democratic group is that they offer physicians an equal voice and responsibility for providing high quality medical care and service to the community. The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) goes as far as to call democratic groups an ideal practice model for emergency physicians. Many emergency physicians are attracted to the political and financial equity offered by democratic groups, and the ability to fully benefit from the group’s success.

We think NEMS offers emergency physicians a fantastic opportunity to practice emergency medicine on its own (did we mention the option for partnership and the generous employer retirement contribution?), however NEMS is also conveniently located in the beautiful eastern Connecticut community of Willimantic, Connecticut.

9 Ways to Ease Transition & Increase Productivity After a Night Shift

As a healthcare provider, you have probably experienced the toll that the night shift can have on your quality of life.

Working the night shift forces the body to operate counter to its circadian rhythm, the internal clock that tells us when we should be sleeping and when we should be awake. Few people adapt easily or completely to such schedules, and it's not uncommon for such people to suffer from shift work sleep disorder (SWSD) or experience burnout in their career.

People who work the night shift can experience a variety of sleep-related issues, including insomnia, excessive sleepiness, irritability, and lack of concentration. Long-term effects also include depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and other mood disorders.

As a healthcare provider working in the field of emergency medicine, your schedule doesn't lock you in with what's natural for your body. Working nights, whether exclusively or sporaticly, is a part of the job and there will be times you are faced with working them.

How can you ease the transition and increase your productivity after working a night shift? Here are 9 hacks for optimizing that valuable time as the sun rises and you head to bed.

What March Madness Tells You About Your Emergency Medicine Career