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Monday, July 9, 2018 – According to a new national survey, more than half of US doctors are exhausted, and these doctors are more likely to make medical mistakes.
The survey asked nearly 6,700 hospital doctors for medical errors, workplace safety, and symptoms of burnout, fatigue, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
More than 10% reported committing at least one significant medical error in the three months preceding the survey. "Burnout is a reversible professional syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion and / or cynicism, often characterized by a decrease in effectiveness," says Dr. Daniel Tawfik, lead author of the study. . . He is a professor in pediatric intensive care at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
"Although it's not unique to doctors, it's especially common in professions like medicine that exhibit high levels of stress and intense interactions with people. 19659002] "When a doctor experiences burnout, a wide range of adverse effects can occur," noted Tawfik. "In our study, the most common errors were medical judgment errors, misdiagnosis, and technical errors during procedures."
Other studies have pointed to the link between burnout and burnout. professional and drug abuse. order too much or too little laboratory testing; "The main finding of this study," said Tawfik, "is that individual levels of burnout and work unit safety are strongly associated with medical errors. 19659002] According to researchers, previous studies have linked medical errors to more than 100,000 to 200,000 patient deaths each year.
As for exhaustion, Tawfik noted that about a third to half of all American doctors would suffer
to see how exhaustion and / or safety at work might affect on medical errors, the team interviewed physicians practicing an active clinical practice in 2014.
Nearly 4% described the safety history of their patients. workplace is either "poor" or "failing". A dangerous work environment has tripled to quadruple the risk of making a medical error.
But burnout was much more prevalent than workplace safety issues – over 55% of physicians reported suffering from burnout. and 6.5% said they had planned suicide.
In addition, the symptoms of burnout were more common among the 11% who reported having recently committed a medical error than among those who had not done so. The same dynamic is maintained with regard to fatigue and suicidal thoughts.
In addition, health facilities where burnout was considered a common problem saw their medical error rate triple, even though the general workplace environment "
] Tawfik said that a "multi-pronged approach will be needed to reverse the trend of burnout among doctors.
Physicians, with the support of the employer, will have to give priority to better care.
They must also limit work hours, paperwork overload and undue stress. According to Mr. Tawfik, this can be done through stress management and mindfulness training, along with administrative reforms to promote "more time with patients and greater joy in medicine" [19659014]. Joshua Denson, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, said the root causes of medical errors are "very important, but difficult to study." He was not involved in the research.
"But I suggest that the changes at the system level are what is needed," Denson said.
"And people are trying things, for example, some hospitals now have" wellness directors, "especially to look after the well-being of their employees, which is a whole new concept," he said. . we need more, "said Denson." The changes that account for the fact that most doctors are in debt with huge student debt, do a lot less than before, but they are asked to do more than never, to work harder than ever, in an environment filled with informational overload – a widespread problem. "
The study was published online July 9 in Mayo Clinic Proceedings .
More information
There is more about medical errors at NPR.
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