Physician Burnout in Emergency Medicine, A Review

Abstract

Emergency medicine training and practise are demanding endeavours that put emergency care doctors at risk of burnout. Burnout syndrome is linked to poor results for patients, organisations, and doctors. The purpose of this review is to summarise the material that is currently available on physician burnout in emergency medicine and offer suggestions for further research in this area. A search was conducted using the terms "burnout, professional" and "emergency medicine" and "physicians"; "stress, psychological" and "emergency medicine" and "physicians"; and "Mental Stress" and "emergency medicine" and "physicians" in EMBASE (1988-present) and MEDLINE (1946-present). The authors concentrated on studies that evaluated physician burnout in emergency care. Most research used the Maslach Burnout Inventory to measure burnout, enabling comparisons between studies (and between nations). Compared to physicians as a whole (38%), emergency medicine has burnout rates that are over 60%. Despite this, the majority of emergency medicine doctors (>60%) are happy with their careers. Burnout is linked to both work-related (hours worked, years of experience, professional development activities, non-clinical responsibilities, etc.) and non-work-related (age, sex, lifestyle characteristics, etc.) aspects. Despite the high rates of burnout among emergency care doctors, little research has been done in this area. It is important to identify the causes of burnout in different emergency medicine populations and to implement the proper interventions to lessen burnout.