Physician Burn-out... who and why...

I am a physician..And I wouldnt think anything else would suit me better.

I dreamed of it since I was 4 years old.. literally.. I used to play doctors by using a old kitchen stove knob as a stethoscope head, tear off little bits of paper, those were my prescriptions..Growing up, each and every choice of my academics was geared towards it..

Med school was everything I ever wanted.. I trained in the United states for residency..took up a job of outpatient only family medicine. I am one of those weird people who like to be recognized in the shopping mall or grocery store by my patients and when they say hi.. I am happy!!

I have been very happy with my choice and will not choose otherwise if given an option.

But...

when you come to think about burn out...what is it? where does it stem from?I never thought I would be one of them who is burned out. I thought that is only for people who came into this profession not really liking it!

I am this person who loves what I do.. when you love what you do, you shouldnt feel any tiredness or overwhelmed or upset from the demands of the job that you love! Isnt that the whole point of loving what you do?

Unfortunately, that isnt the case. We are pushed and pushed and pushed in all directions.

Just a small example here.. I took a day off work due to weather conditions, it was snowing and the kids had no school. I had to take a day off to be with them.

I still had to cover my inbox, which got about 25 messages due to patient calls,pharmacy calls etc, 30 refill requests, 15 portal messages directly from patients. I had to cover another physician 's inbox as well since he wasnt able to. Apart from these, lab results to be interpreted and reported.

Throughout the day, I have been on the portal on and off every hour on average.

Remember.. I have not seen any patients today. This day is considered to be a "Time -off" and will be deducted from my vacation time since its my vacation technically!!

And I will lose the RVUs obviously due to not being in the clinic. But I do feel like I have still worked... Am I crazy or not? You could say these are included in administrative duties of the physician.. yes ..true.

Then why am I losing my vacation time off? Physicians get paid for seeing and taking care of patients.. totally agree.. no brainer !

What about the hours spent outside of it trying to do the million other miscellaneous things that has to be done to keep the continuity of care good ?

You taking a day off is none of your patient’s business.. you still have to be able to answer the portal messages within 24 hours, urgent messages within an hour..call back that insurance company that will ask for a peer to peer review for a CT scan or MRI that you think is absolutely necessary to validate the patient’s symptoms!

No physician for that matter gets a real time off .. unless you are out of the country and can not access your charts .. you feel like this drained phone plugged into power cable all the time !

I can hear million other physician voices saying .. “this is nothing compared to what I do “ I agree .. I can only speak from my stand point.. and mine is the voice of so many others!

We love to take care of the patients .. we love to provide the compassion and timely response that they absolutely deserve.. but how ? I would love to be that doctor who sits down with you.. not rushed , fully focus on what you have to say.. do the needful and do that 20 more times the same day and over and over for years !

Isn’t burn out inevitable here ?