Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Physician Burnout”
After catching my recent interview on the White Coat Investor podcast (thanks for the opportunity, Jim!), a like-minded reader wrote in asking if I had suggestions on how he might reduce or eliminate call responsibilities. Except for a year of failed experimentation in ER surge call (don’t ask), I never take call working in emergency medicine, so I’m a definite …
You and Medicine have been on the outs for a while. She’s been giving you the cold shoulder when you slide into bed at night. She doesn’t laugh at your jokes the way she used to. She can sense your resentment. What started as a love affair has dwindled to ambivalent interdependence. Medicine cooks, you do the dishes. Breaking routine …
Sometimes the people we love are those most likely to sabotage us by insisting on forcing our unconventional narrative to fit within their traditional story framework. My wife’s grandmother, a widow, had developed dementia and moved to an assisted living facility. My wife’s aunt, a successful attorney in her 50s who happened to be single, had come from out of …
Alternate Title: The Father, The Son And The Holy Crap! Careers in medicine have evolved over time. It’s always been a hard path, but previously, you knew what you were getting when you signed up. Recent changes have eliminated significant autonomy and prestige from a medical career. Increased debt conspires with decreased satisfaction until we unexpectedly encounter an Apparent Longevity …
Alternate Title: Carolina In My Mind This weekend was spent in North Carolina strengthening ties with people we love but see less often than we’d like. BT is one of those people. He was not a typical emergency medicine resident Most of us were single. BT was married with a kid. Most of us had family in California BT was …
I recently called every member of my physician group as part of an effort to incorporate feedback on a group policy I was trying to develop. I’m fortunate to work with folks I truly respect and admire, who collaborate and frequently ask one another to opine in challenging cases. In that spirit, I sought advice and suggestions from folks who …
I recently had the pleasure of a prospective, completely non-randomized and uncontrolled follow-up on a friend from my days in Boston, and it was a joy to discover the unusual path he’s taken. It went down like this: I reached out to an old friend from residency who’d disappeared off the face of the earth for a decade since attending …
I recently re-read an inspirational post by BC Krygowski, a palliative care physician married to another doc who (at their lowest point) was living hand-to-mouth in a big doctor house in an expensive state with $750k in debt. Like many of us, they realized well into their careers that they were on a collision course with financial disaster; like few, …
It’s official: a study published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings showed that as of 2014, Emergency Medicine (EM) took the top slot for physician burnout (59%). Suck it, critical care (50%). In your face, OB/GYN (56%). We’re #1, we’re # …huh? How did my beloved field of EM win the race to nowhere? When I was in medical school, the …
Acceptance Eventually, the ability to enjoy myself seeped back into my life, one area at a time. My kids sucked me back into their world that didn’t care about my troubles so long as I could splash them in the bath or read them a bedtime story. My wife was simply extraordinary. I didn’t feel deserving of my family’s love, …