Study: Shorter ICU Rotations Reduce Burnout

Could we be thinking about burnout wrong?

Photo by Hush Naidoo on Unsplash

A new study showed that shortening ICU rotations may reduce physician burnout by a significant degree:

“In critical care medicine, periods of extreme stress can contribute to high burnout. Our study shows that organizations can implement new strategies, such as shorter staffing rotations, that have a real impact on burnout rates and job fulfillment — both of which can be extremely influential to the shape and direction of ones’ career,” said the study’s lead author, Mark E. Mikkelsen, MD, MSCE, chief of Medical Critical Care and an associate professor of Medicine. “Based on our findings, we changed our scheduling approach to limit the number of consecutive days per rotation, and ensure adequate non-clinical time between rotations.”

At first glance of the study results, I was like “Well, duh.” Working 14 days in a row is quite difficult, and it is not surprising that physicians would feel burned out if they worked 2 weeks straight without rest. That got me thinking: is the way we think about and measure burnout wrong?

I was speaking to one of my colleagues, and he told me that it may be that “burnout” can come when one’s expectations are not the same as his or her reality. For example, when we hire a physician or APP and tell them, “We are quite busy,”…