I have not blogged in a while; there are many reasons for
this, including many things going on in my life as well as with my work as a
medical educator and administrator. The
weather here in the Midwest has also been challenging this winter (and another
storm headed this way over the next 24 hours) which likely has contributed to
my lack of blogging.
Nevertheless, I really enjoy what I do and find meaning
in my work. In fact, a timely discussion
with residents during a teaching clinic highlighting this really hit home. We were talking about burnout and ways to
combat it. The practice of medicine is
hard: helping improve the health of our patients is a privilege which brings
great responsibility. This can, however,
impact physicians’ own lives in various ways.
Social media itself (in the form of blogging) can be a
great tool to ease burnout in medicine. See this recent blog on this very
topic.
Can burnout be prevented?
What about resiliency in medicine?
Does one's resiliency lessen the potential impact of
burnout? Our institution is proud to host the FIRM (Finding Inspiration and Resilience in Medicine) conference on
April 25, 2014. This conference is being
organized by medical students, which really demonstrates how our future
generation is paving the way for the necessary changes to the way medicine can
and will be practiced. At that conference, one of our own faculty who wrote a recent post on this topic will be featured.
So what steps do you take to prevent burnout? How can you develop the resilience necessary to
stay on top of your game and be the best you can be for patients and for
yourself/your family? Some have described
interventions during training that impact burnout. These curricular efforts should be applauded,
and are one step towards an improved culture in medicine that helps everyone:
patients and health care professionals alike.
