Amanda Oster, Program Director of Healthy Work Environment at IU Health, and Eric Williams, Staff Chaplain at IU Health, presented a Fairbanks Ethics Grand Rounds on Healthcare Provider Wellbeing. The talk highlighted the importance of provider well-being and discussed evidence-based interventions to promote wellness among healthcare providers who are often taxed by an environment that can be unfriendly to personal wellness.
The unwell physician is unfortunately commonplace due to a variety of factors: burnout, time constraints on patient care, moral distress that arises in caring for patients, and the emotional stress of caring for ill and dying patients. While decreased from previous years, in 2023 48.2% of physicians reported symptoms of burnout. Medical residents are 4 times more likely to experience a major depressive episode during training than their age-matched counterparts. Additionally, physicians are at an increased risk to commit suicide, 1.41 times higher in male physicians and 2.27 times higher for female physicians, than their non-provider counterparts.
The fact that just under 50% of physicians experiencing burnout is a “milestone” highlights that the fight for physician wellness is continually ongoing. Physicians are not adequately supported and resources should be allocated to assist them in processing distress and burnout thereby helping them thrive in their work. Those in helping professions, including physicians, nurses, social workers, and many more both within and outside of the healthcare setting, should not be allowed to exist “unhelped” themselves in these areas.
Physician well-being should be a moral necessity solely due to the impact of wellness on the individual, moreover, its impacts are felt much further. A 2015 systematic review indicated that physician well-being was positively associated with patient satisfaction, adherence to treatment, and interpersonal aspects of care including trust. Additionally, as burnout can lead to a reduction of work hours or early retirement, physician wellness can help maintain the medical workforce. This reduction of workforce has been found to lead to poor patient outcomes including adverse clinical outcomes, difficulties finding new providers, and an increased use of high-cost services such as emergency room visits (which may contribute to a negative feedback loop impact on the well-being of emergency room providers).
Work must be done, both within and outside of the healthcare system, to combat the unwell physician. Interventions include creating peer support programs, increased access to mental health services for providers, and encouragement and support in physicians cultivating hobbies and personal well-being outside of work. While these changes are important and wellness certainly requires personal investment, the expectation cannot be that physicians solve the problem themselves. In many ways, the healthcare system’s design (or maybe lack of clear design) has led to burdens on physicians. However, structural changes, while possibly the most important, are also the most difficult to implement. There must be healthcare leaders who are willing to step up and make bold changes to improve the well-being of providers who serve patients in their systems.
Leave a Reply