Medical students and residents work long hours, are under significant amounts of stress, and often struggle with work-life balance. It should come as no surprise they’re susceptible to burnout just like physicians. In fact, what may be surprising is their burnout rates are about the same — both landing at nearly 50 percent.
Burnout in Medical Students and Residents
Burnout is a serious concern for medical students, residents, patients, and healthcare overall.
While burnout isn’t an actual diagnosis, it can contribute to mental health conditions like depression and suicidal ideation. In addition, it can cause physical health problems like headache and cardiovascular disease.
But it isn’t just the medical student or resident who’s impacted by burnout. Extreme fatigue, a symptom of burnout, increases risks to patient care, safety, and satisfaction.
Are you a healthcare professional dealing with burnout symptoms? See how SafeHaven can help support you and your team.
Burnout can also cause medical students and residents to reconsider their career choice and leave the profession altogether. Now, more than ever, we need qualified, engaged physicians. We simply can’t afford to lose them, and we certainly can’t afford to gamble with half of all medical students and residents.
Talking about burnout with medical students and residents is critical, so it can be addressed —sooner rather than later. Knowledge, awareness, and acceptance are all essential to creating a culture more open to recognizing and resolving burnout. In other words, the medical profession overall must talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to burnout.
First, addressing burnout begins with understanding what it is.
What is Burnout?
Burnout is defined by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and cynicism, and feelings of inefficacy and inadequate personal achievement, which leads to decreased effectiveness at work.
Second, it’s important to know more about who’s at risk.
Who is at Risk for Burnout?
According to research, physicians in front-line specialties seem to be at greatest risk for burnout. Those include family medicine, general internal medicine, and emergency medicine. The top 3 medical specialties for burnout are urology, neurology, and nephrology, which were ranked by the 2020 Medscape National Physician Burnout and Suicide Report. This information could be valuable to helping medical students and residents in those specialties with burnout.
Data from the 2020 Medscape National Physician Burnout and Suicide Report also indicates that women physicians commonly reported more symptoms of burnout. Interestingly, women physicians more commonly report the feeling of lack of efficacy, while both women and men physicians appear to suffer equally from exhaustion and fatigue. Again, this could be relevant to helping female medical students and residents with awareness of potential increased burnout susceptibility.
Third, identifying symptoms is key to the ability to address them — and that includes education so medical students and residents are best positioned to be self-aware.
What are the Symptoms of Burnout?
Burnout signs and symptoms can include reduced commitment toward patients, inability to focus, anxiety, reduced cognitive performance, flattening of social life, apathy, and despair. Generally speaking, people suffering from burnout have trouble sleeping, use more alcohol and other substances, and are also more likely to get sick, making work absenteeism a problem.
The National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine shared a chart of the 5 stages of burnout in its article “Burnout in Healthcare Workers: Prevalence, Impact and Preventive Strategies.” Each of the 5 stages — Honeymoon, Onset of Stress, Chronic Stress, Burnout, and Habitual Burnout — features a list of potential symptoms. The chart can help medical students and residents recognize symptoms and seek intervention, hopefully in earlier stages. Regular resurfacing and discussion of the symptoms within the context of their experiences is also important to ongoing and lasting improvements in burnout among this group.
Medical students and residents can also use a self-assessment tool to measure and monitor their risk of burnout. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which covers the three areas of burnout — emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low sense of personal accomplishment — is most frequently used.
Finally, understanding and addressing both external and internal causes of burnout can also help reduce burnout among medical students and residents.
What Causes Burnout?
External causes of burnout include things such as lack of freedom to make decisions, hierarchy problems, poor communication, bullying, lack of resources, and lack of clarity about roles. Medical students and residents can advocate for change related to these causes, but the system must be open to and willing to shift and change as well. As a start, structural changes, wellness activities, mental health support initiatives, and coaching have been suggested as mechanisms to address burnout among residents.
Internal factors of burnout include such things as perfectionism and always wanting to please others. These can be addressed through self-work or collaboration with a mental health specialist.
Talking about burnout with medical students and residents is central to reducing risks and hopefully resolving burnout issues among this vulnerable population. Earlier identification and earlier intervention, along with addressing both internal and external root causes will make the difference for medical students and residents — as well as to the future of medicine.
Are you a healthcare professional dealing with burnout symptoms? See how SafeHaven can help support you and your team.
