Physician Leadership - HUGE key to burnout mitigation

For any of you finding yourself reading this who are new to the party, doctors are suffering from an epidemic level of burnout and have been struggling with finding joy in their work for years. It is going to take just as many years to fix the systems that have contributed to the current state. In the meantime, Footlamp Consulting is focused on implementing customized and very personal coaching solutions for individuals to help lighten their load and reduce or prevent burnout altogether.

I actually got into a debate with a buddy of mine who owns a civil rights law firm over whose profession had a higher suicide rate, his or doctors. As it turns out, depending upon which research you consult, both lawyers and doctors have incredibly high suicide rates. We also decided this was a horrible thing to find ourselves talking about over dinner with our families! I have realized that although this is a part of my every day, most people not working in the health care arena realize just how bad burnout for doctors is. If you are just getting up to speed on this topic, be sure to say some genuine, affirming things to your physician the next time you see them. They are pushing themselves hard to continue caring for us; they are also clinging to the personal connections and options to provide value for their patients in this incredibly complex and difficult time of providing care. Please, just take a minute to tell them what their care has meant to you. Write them a thank you note and mail it to them old school style. It may be exactly what they need to hear that day.

I sent my daughter’s oral surgeon a thank you note for deciding to take the week between Christmas and New Year’s off to be with his family (after I berated him for making himself available during that time). He had never done that before and was anxious about not being available for his patients. He had back up systems in place and took the time for his own health and wellness. I thanked him for doing that. I don’t know if he had ever heard that perspective from one of his patients before. I think they need to hear this more. If we all begin speaking up about how we, their patients, are thinking about how important it is for them to take time for themselves, maybe they will be able to become a little more comfortable doing it.

We are driven to provide support to physician leaders here at Footlamp. We know it not only makes their jobs easier and provides them with ease in their own self-mastery journey; we also know their increased leadership capabilities result in lower burnout rates for the doctors they are leading. One additional key finding in the research to help lessen burnout is the quality of leadership physicians have in the bosses who are leading them. On a multivariate analysis adjusting for age, sex, duration of employment at Mayo Clinic, and specialty, each 1-point increase in composite leadership score was associated with a 3.3% decrease in the likelihood of burnout (P<.001) and a 9.0% increase in the likelihood of satisfaction (P<.001) of the physicians supervised. In the unrelenting battle to make this problem for physicians go away, it gives me hope to know there are ways to make things better. Until this problem is joined by viable solutions to the various system issues exacerbating the current dilemma, we will continue to be grateful for better. And drive to spread better everywhere we are able to.