Burning Out

 A lot is put on health care workers, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, tons of recognition was given to frontline workers in honor of their sacrifices. Just last week at Michigan Medicine, there was a “record high” of admissions for COVID-19. As vaccines roll out and we face another surge of cases in the United States, health care workers continue to put themselves at risk everyday.

Burnout can be found in any work environment, but there are certainly key factors that will accentuate it. Before COVID was even a concern, it was found that physicians had nearly double the rate of burnout symptoms when compared to the general population (54% vs. 28% in 2014) (Green-McKenzie et al., 2020). Similarly, pharmacists were found to have rates of burnout over 50% before the pandemic. After COVID-19, we see levels of 64-70% in pharmacy and other healthcare professionals (Jones et al., 2021). 

Why are healthcare occupations so prone to burnout? Healthcare professionals in the United States are fairly well paid, but compensation isn't always enough to cover increasing demands. Burnout can be defined by three major characteristics; high levels of emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization, and low sense of personal accomplishment (Green-McKenzie et al., 2020). Emotional exhaustion may be the most evident for healthcare workers. As discussed before, COVID-19 has required a particular type of sacrifice from them and community gratitude has faded despite continued demand. Those on the frontlines have had to work in particularly hard situations where the odds are harshly against them in saving a life. This feeds into a declining sense of accomplishment as workers have to handle what feels like failure when a patient dies.

  Burnout isn’t without repercussions, either. Aside from the toll it has on workers, patients are also affected at some point. Providers are less motivated to meet performance standards and likely to make medical errors when burned out. Burnout has existed for a long time in healthcare, and has only been exacerbated by COVID-19. The need to address it is higher than ever, but threatens to be overshadowed by the many other challenges our society now faces.

References 

Green-McKenzie, J., Somasundaram, P., Lawler, T., O’Hara, E., & Shofer, F. S. (2020). Prevalence of Burnout in Occupational and Environmental Medicine Physicians in the United States. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 62(9), 680–685. https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000001913

Jones, A. M., Clark, J. S., & Mohammad, R. A. (2021). Burnout and secondary traumatic stress in health-system pharmacists during the COVID-19 pandemic. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, zxab051. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajhp/zxab051