Let's Take a Vacationfrom Physician Burnout

A recent review article evaluated the variables associate with burnout.² Predictive factors for burnout included younger age,female sex, negative marital status, long working hours and low reported job satisfaction, while participation in 'wellness programs' was shown to be protective. Other recent research suggests that personal traits such as compulsiveness, guilt, self-denial, and perfectionism may be contributing factors and that the medical profession would do well to adopt professionalcoaching, a well-established tool in business circles, to protect against burnout.³Whatever the causes, burnout is of concern to all both within the profession and those outside it, due to its proven negative effects on patient care and safety.

In the light of these findings, I searched for evidence of how vacation time affects burnout among physicians andwas surprised to find it lacking. A study from 2001 done on blue collar employees showed that levels of burnout were lower immediately after the vacation, but had returned to pre-holiday levels within 4 weeks.6 While longer vacations are obviously not going to be a simple solution, logic suggests that the opportunity to vacation for a week or 2 twice, or even 3 times a year, spending time with the important people in our lives, surely must go some way to improve stress levels, reduce burnout, and address the work-life imbalance that most doctors regard as normal.  Evidence to support my hypothesis islacking; however, the work mentality is so ingrained in American culture that the task of finding subjects for my research may be enough to cause burnout.