For the Young Doctor About to Burn Out

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http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/for-the-young-doctor-about-to-burn-out/284005/

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Our health depends in part on health professionals, and there is mounting evidence that many young physicians are not thriving. A recent report in the journal Academic Medicine revealed that, compared to age-matched fellow college graduates, medical students report significantly higher rates of burnout.

Specifically, they are suffering from high rates of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment. College students choose careers in medicine because they care, because people matter to them, and because they want to make a difference. What is happening to the nearly 80,000 U.S. medical students to produce such high rates of burnout?

It is tempting to invoke the usual suspects: too many hours of study, too little contact with patients, and overwhelming anxiety concerning grades and test scores. Such stressors are compounded by exploding rates of change in medical science and technology and the general cloud of socioeconomic uncertainty hanging over the profession of medicine.

Yet the real roots of the problem go far deeper, and it is only by plumbing their full depth that we can hope to formulate an accurate diagnosis and prescribe an effective therapy. On closer inspection, burnout turns out to be a symptom of a more fundamental disorder that calls for curative—not merely symptomatic—therapy.