The New York Times published an article on October 30th entitled “Medical Student Burnout and the Challenge to Patient Care.”
The author, Pauline W. Chen, MD, mentions three studies reported by Dr. Liselotte N. Dyrbye from the Mayo Clinic:
“In 2006, Dr. Liselotte N. Dyrbye and her colleagues at the Mayo Clinic found that nearly half of the 545 medical students they surveyed suffered from burnout, which they defined as professional distress in three domains: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and low sense of personal accomplishment. Moreover, the researchers found that each successive year of schooling increased the chances students would experience burnout . . .”
“More recently . . . Dr. Dyrbye and her colleagues widened the scope of their research, analyzing survey responses from 2,248 medical students at seven medical schools across the country. Again, nearly half of the students surveyed met the criteria for burnout. But the investigators discovered an even more ominous finding: 11 percent of all the students surveyed also reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year.”
“In a third study, Dr. Dyrbye found that when tested for empathy, medical students at baseline generally scored higher than their nonmedical peers. But, as medical students experienced more burnout, there was a corresponding drop in the level of empathy toward patients.”
Dr. Chen concludes with a quote from Dr. Dyrbye:
‘“We need to change things,” she had said, “because maybe the students who are most vulnerable are the ones who are most empathic.”’
None of this information surprises the physician reader, but the fact that this information is getting out there in a highly read source such as the NY Times is a good thing. The article is well written, ties in personal reflections, and is worth the time to read.
To read the article, please visit the NY Times website.
