Physician Burnout

“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin/As self-neglecting.” King Henry V, Act 2, scene 4

Physicians are often prone to burnout because of their personality profiles. “We want people who are driven, who are competitive, who can excel at everything that they do. What do they do when they get into practice? They try to do everything, and they have this complex which also says they must succeed at everything,” commented T. Jock Murray, MD, director of the medical humanities program at Dalhousie University in Halifax, professor of medicine (neurology), and director of the Dalhousie Multiple Sclerosis Research Unit.

Burnout has many characteristics, including fatigue, exhaustion, inability to concentrate, depression, anxiety, insomnia, irritability, and sometimes increased use of alcohol or drugs. Probably the most distinct characteristic of burnout is a loss of interest in one's work or personal life, a feeling of “just going through the motions.” For the most part, burnout in physicians does not differ from that in other professions, but physicians' reactions may be unique in some respects, in part because burnout in physicians can have devastating consequences for patients.

Self-care is not a part of the physician's professional training and typically is low on a physician's list of priorities. “Physicians deal with [other people's] personal problems all day, but they're the least likely to raise their own personal problems. They don't easily admit that they're under stress,” remarked Murray. Approximately one third of physicians do not have a doctor themselves, according to a recent study that examined graduates of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:3209-14).

In his article “Physician Renewal: The Importance of Life Balance,” Peter S. Moskowitz, MD, suggests that physicians deny their own emotions and needs as a survival mechanism. Because doctors are advised not to allow …