We are hearing more and more about burnout issues for physicians in all fields of medicine—and while pediatrics is one of the fields with the least amount of burnout, it can and still does occur and can affect those not just late but even early in their careers. At least that’s what we can learn from a survey study being shared this week in our journal by Starmer et al. (10.1542/peds.2015-3183). The authors questioned more than 800 pediatricians who finished residency a little over a decade ago and asked them about how they viewed their ability to balance personal and professional lives, their career and life satisfaction and if they were burnt out from work. While most self-reported overall career and life satisfaction, less than half felt their work-life balance was appropriate and a third self-reported burnout with their careers. The authors do identify some factors that were associated with less risk of burnout in this national sample, and these factors are worth reading this article to learn about.
Burnout is clearly an issue for all of us be made more aware of so we who are not burnt out can better recognize and then help our colleagues who are through perhaps better peer support or ways to improve their overall balance and wellness. Hopefully the AAP will take a leadership role in making reduction of pediatrician burnout a strategic initiative by focusing even more on this important issue in the weeks and months to come.
This article involving early career pediatricians experiencing burnout will certainly add import to the need to design preventive strategies for this problem no matter how many years a pediatrician has been in practice.
