1. Burnout is defined as a cumulative negative response to prolonged occupational stress, and it related to mental and physical disorders (Portoghese et al. 2017). Plainly speaking, burnout is a result of overwhelming stress to the point of exhaustion. Health professionals are subject to burnout due to the nature of the occupation and environment. Recognizing the risk factors can assist in the management of stress levels and reduce burnout. Common risk factors are increased workload or patient load, extreme shift hours, organizational mismanagement, and administrative/clerical burden. Personally, I have worked in a clinic setting and experienced burnout and witness burnout among my peers and coworkers. Majority of the burnout was caused by unrealistic patient loads. We were expected to have 20-minute appointment slots from the time we opened until the clinic closed. The problem lies in patients require more time to be evaluated, managed, and treated for the various issues they bring to us. This leads to backed up patient flow, reduced break times, unsatisfied patients, and frustrated staff. Another administrative burden was performance evaluations and awards. For some reason, without fail, when this time comes around it adds a lot of additional stress.
2. Healthcare professionals share common burnout concerns, but each individual role has a unique set of concerns specific to their group. For instance, physicians who specialize in a high-demand field or are the first point of contact experience burnout at a higher rate (Sampson & Fried, 2021). So, an emergency medicine physician or an anesthesiologist may experience burnout faster than a family medicine provider. Physicians also have a lower work-life balance. Nurses, as the largest component of health professionals, have their concerns with workload, emotional stress, and staffing. Nurses spend a lot of contact time with patients and must appease both patients and supervising physicians. Manning shortages also continues to be a cause resulting in increased hours, pay fluctuation, poor work-life, and retention problems. Students, in addition to their class and assignment load, deal with the added stress of navigating the professional world, training, stressful work environments, etc. I witness students and residents who are doing their best to accomplish so many tasks in a small amount of time just to fulfill the requirements of their rotation. Healthcare executives are charged with keeping the lights on and ensuring all factors come together to deliver effective healthcare. This includes managing compliance, people, customers, supplies, partners, and operations. While burnout is not avoidable, it benefits everyone to know the risk factors and symptoms to best mitigate it when burnout occurs
