Special Article: Physician Burnout-The Experience of Three Physicians

Robert A. Raschke, MD

University Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center

Phoenix, AZ

Our fellowship held a discussion on physician burnout which was facilitated by Kris Cooper PhD, a psychologist who has long experience working with struggling physicians. We were joined by three physicians who volunteered to share their personal experiences regarding burnout. Each of these three physicians are exceptional in their devotion to their profession, high self-expectation, and level of professional achievement. Yet the commendable personal characteristics they share may have actually set them up to ultimately suffer burnout. Each of them responded to burnout in a different way.

The first physician is an intensivist who left work suddenly 6 months ago, likely never to return. Over a long career, this physician had earned the respect of his colleagues and was beloved by the nurses for seeming to always knowing the right thing to do and dedicating himself fully to the care of the sickest patients and their families. For most of his career he rarely experienced anxiety even under the most stressful situations - “I did not even know really what it meant to be anxious”. He typically slept soundly 8 hours a night no matter what had happened at work. But nearing the end of his career he felt he had been floundering, essentially “propped-up” by the housestaff and his partners as he became progressively unable to function. At the time of his sudden departure, he was suffering unremitting insomnia, anxiety, and low self-confidence. He routinely avoided taking the sickest patients. His anxiety became so severe that he suffered anticipatory nausea even when simply accepting hand-off of the ICU service by phone.   

He relates the beginning of his professional difficulties to seven years previously when his wife of 20 years unexpectedly announced her intention to divorce him. This was emotionally highly traumatic and essentially caused a situation of unremitting stress both at work and at home. He recalled often having to deal with divorce lawyers even while at work – once having been called by a lawyer while was trying to run a code. He was not able to remediate his marriage. The process was frustrating and costly, however, he was able to seemingly recover over a prolonged course. He continued functioning at a high level at work during this process and for a number of years afterwards however he found himself socially isolated and with new financial worries.

Several years later a series of complaints were lodged against him at work. In one case, he was reprimanded for publically berating a colleague regarding an inappropriate patient transfer to the ICU. Several of his patients suffered bad outcomes and were submitted for peer review. However, the reviewers were not intensivists, and he felt were not truly “peers” in the sense that they couldn’t relate to the types of decisions required in ICU emergencies. In one case, a hematologist criticized his decision to give activated factor VII to a patient who was coding from uncontrollable obstetrical hemorrhage after the blood bank was unable to provide plasma. It was decided that his action in this case was outside the standard of care, although the reviewer did not offer any therapeutic alternative. In another incident, the physician extubated a patient who was subsequently unable to maintain independent breathing. Attempts to reintubate were unsuccessful and consequently fatal. In each case, the physician knew he had done the best he possibly could for the patient, but this chain of events cumulatively resulted in enduring workplace anxiety and a loss of self-confidence. Although he continued to provide good patient care, he felt he was “faking it”, by avoiding the sickest patients and leaning heavily on residents and fellows. He sometimes asked as many as three physicians (a critical care colleague, surgeon, and anesthesiologist) to back him up when one of his patients required endotracheal intubation, although his airway skill level demonstrated over the long course of his career was excellent.

A tremor which he had suffered with for several years worsened, making it even more difficult to perform procedures. He complained of neck pain and arm weakness but a neurological evaluation was unrevealing. He was repeatedly sick with the stomach flu and upper respiratory tract infections. He was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but prescription medications provided no benefit and seemed to worsen somatic complaints. Insomnia became unremitting. He would go for weeks on end, sleeping only a few hours per night, or not at all. Although he was overcome by anxiety, he became detached from more situationally-appropriate emotions – relating that he could run a code, watch the patient die, then “go right to the doctor’s lounge and eat a cheeseburger”- as though his feelings about things that were happening around him were irrelevant. The realization that he could no longer go on this way hit him suddenly and somewhat expectedly, although in retrospect it should have been obvious much sooner.

Up to 50% of physicians and nurses experience “burnout” at some point in their career – the highest incidence is in critical care (1). Burnout is characterized by the triad of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a loss of any satisfaction in doing your job. It is caused by long term exposure to emotionally demanding situations in an environment of high responsibility and low control. Physicians with high empathy and high self-expectation and introspection are particularly at risk. It is associated with having made mistakes, perceptions of unreasonable work demands, feeling unsupported by the organization, and interpersonal conflicts. Symptoms include somatic complaints, frequent minor illnesses, social withdrawal, cynicism, exhaustion, and feeling underappreciated and overworked. Burnout may overlap with compassion fatigue, PTSD, depression, anxiety, alcoholism and drug abuse in some providers. The risk of suicide is increased by 600% for physicians, particularly female physicians.

The first physician said that he had a number of strikes against him, and took a number of wrong turns along the way. He recalled coming home from work exhausted many nights, and having no one to talk to, but at the same time, turning down opportunities to socialize more with friends. He felt he sometimes created more workplace stress than necessary by futilely resisting the hospital administration on a number of trivial issues. His partners were supportive, but really did not understand enough about what he was going through to effectively help him. He waited too long to get himself out of the environment.

But since removing himself from the ICU, he has been slowly improving under professional guidance. At this point, he has been away from work for about six months. [Many of the ICU staff – nurses and physicians alike – consider him the finest doctor they have ever worked with, and often ask when he can return.] But he is fairly certain that he will ever be able to return to work in the ICU.

The second physician is a highly respected intensivist who retired about a year ago, unrelated to burnout. He was described by the first physician as “the best intensivist that I ever met over the course of my career”. However, the second physician suffered significant setbacks and frustration that greatly reduced enjoyment of his career. He distinguished himself as being “fed-up” vs. being burned-out by saying that if we asked him to come into the ICU tomorrow to cover a shift, he would be eager to chip-in.

He also distinguished himself from the first physician by acknowledging that his wife of 42 years had been a huge source of support throughout the course of his many professional setbacks.

In the 1980s, in an era long before the practice of palliative care was accepted, he recalled being approached by several families of patients with end-stage COPD. At the time such patients often suffered through prolonged courses of futile ventilatory support before dying. He made a personal decision to instead offer these patients the option of morphine palliation. This was of clear benefit to his patients, but was considered well outside the standard of care at the time. He was accused of performing euthanasia, and his medical license was threatened. He was offered a deal to continue practicing medicine if he would desist and admit that what he had been doing was wrong. But his wife reassured him that he was doing the right thing and advised him not to give in. He successfully fought the complaint and continued practice. He earned a reputation for being one of the hardest-working, dedicated, and experienced physicians in the city.

In the 1990s, at the peak of his career, he diagnosed a patient with Miller Fisher variant of Guillain Barré, and placed a subclavian line to accomplish therapeutic plasmapheresis. He had previously placed perhaps thousands of subclavian lines over the course of his career. This time however, he lacerated the subclavian artery during the procedure. The patient suffered a life-threatening hemothorax requiring emergent surgical repair. The patient slowly recovered over a month-long ICU stay, during which the physician rarely left the hospital. But despite the eventual favorable outcome, he was sued, and a settlement was not reached. The case went to trial. He recalls that his wife sat in court with him every day. Ultimately he was exonerated by the jury, and he feels his wife’s constancy at his side was likely favorable in their eyes. But the cumulative stress of the traumatic and prolonged legal process changed how he felt about coming to work in the ICU. He tried to return, but his partner convinced him that he needed a break from patient care. He became a successful researcher for a few years. Then he tried his hand at general internal medicine “which was terrible – unless you enjoy writing Percocet scripts for everyone”. He even did a stint as an administrator, which he felt was a mistake in retrospect “you can't make yourself into something you are not”. Eventually, he found his way back to critical care, which he still says is “in my DNA”. Although now retired, he enthusiastically volunteers to do locums work in the ICU (but only with his wife’s approval) and remains a highly effective bedside intensivist and great favorite of the entire ICU staff.

This physician felt several things helped explain his ability to survive the difficult tribulations of his career. He credits his wife being by his side, and his work partner for actively intervening when he was floundering but did not see that he needed a break from patient care. He also thinks his personal philosophy helped him deal with setbacks. “Essentially, bad things happen in the ICU. If you gave it all that you could, you ought to be able to live with yourself, no matter how things turn out. If you cannot do that, you won’t last long in the ICU”.

The third physician pioneered his specialty in the state of Arizona. When he went into single practice in the 1980s, he estimates that he went at least three years without having a single night that wasn’t interrupted by a pages or phone calls. On top of his rapidly growing patient practice, he travelled around the state, lecturing at dozens of venues to establish his specialty in the state. As his practice grew, physicians started to refer him their most complicated patients, many of whom already had complicated medical-legal issues before he was involved. This resulted in his being included in multiple law suits. At one point he was named in over two dozen open suits. Even though he was not found guilty of malpractice in a single case, the cumulative stress of repeated medical legal conflicts took a heavy toll on him. He felt that there was absolutely no support available from the hospitals he worked at, or from professional societies of that time period. He became irritable, angry, and increasingly disengaged. “If you want to know if you’re burned-out, just ask your wife”. He began suffering a series of physical complaints including headaches, palpitations, blepharospasm, and symptoms of irritable bowel for which extensive medical workups were negative. Finally one day he snapped. His pager went off for the ten-thousandth time, and he put his fist through the wall, and told his wife “that’s it – I’m though with (expletive deleted) medicine”.

Fortunately his partners supported his decision to step back from patient care, but advised him to concentrate his considerable experience and interpersonal and organizational skills into the administrative side of their practice. He subsequently achieved a high level of accomplishment and job satisfaction, and currently runs the national professional society of his specialty.

This physician subsequently became a strong advocate for recognition of physician burnout, within his practice, and within his specialty on a national level. He offered some good advice for the audience: Learn what burnout is. If you have the symptoms, you have to stop pretending you’re not burned-out and get professional help. If you notice behaviors of burnout in a colleague, reach out and talk to them.

He pointed out a number of ways to resist the effects of burnout:

• Maintain harmony in your life. It’s not all about work. Family, community, your personal needs, and your spirituality should all be integrated into a healthy lifestyle.
• Do something non-medical that you love to do every day – whether that is walking your dog, playing guitar or reading a good (non-medical) book.
• Get some control of your work schedule and how many hours you are working. Overwork will ultimately ruin both your productivity and the quality of your care. Remember why you went into medicine.
• Don’t build a lifestyle that fosters greed. Studies have shown that once a relatively modest income is achieved, more money does not make life more satisfying or happy. Be altruistic.
• The best way to feel good about yourself is by helping others.
• Meditate each day about the good things that happened and people that you helped, rather than allow your mind to ruminate on negative events and worries.
• If you have interpersonal stress, talk to the person who is the source. Except for the occasional adversary with a personality disorder, open communication usually relieves interpersonal tensions.
• Exercise regularly - Your brain and body are connected.
• Don’t accept a job in which you are routinely asked to sacrifice important life experiences, such as being with your children as they grow up. These experiences cannot later be replaced by or compensated for by job promotions or greater financial income.

Reference

1. Embriaco N, Papazian L, Kentish-Barnes N, Pochard F, Azoulay E. Burnout syndrome among critical care healthcare workers. Curr Opin Crit Care. 2007;13(5):482-8. [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Reference as: Special article: physician burnout-the experience of three physicians. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2015;10(4):190-4. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc056-15 PDF

Brief Review: Dangers of the Electronic Medical Record

Richard A. Robbins, MD

Southwest Journal of Pulmonary and Critical Care

Gilbert, AZ

In 2009 then president-elect Barack Obama said he planned to continue the Bush administration's push for the federal government to invest in electronic medical records (EMR) so all were digitized within five years. "This will cut waste, eliminate red tape, and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests," he said, adding that the switch also would "save lives by reducing the number of errors in medicine"(1). Now over 5 years on, it might be time to examine how EMR has impacted medicine.

Historically, similar arguments were made by Dr. Ken Kizer, then Undersecretary for Veterans Healthcare Administration (VHA), 20 years ago (2). As a physician who practiced the VA at the time, my colleagues and I welcomed EMR. It had to be better than a system where neither the chart nor the x-rays were available for pulmonary clinic most of the time (Robbins RA, unpublished observations). EMR improved this. In general, x-rays and records were available and I have little doubt that this improved healthcare. However, it came at a price. It's the later that is discussed in this review.

Waste and Red Tape

Elimination of waste and red tape are good things. However, does the EMR eliminate either? Most articles have been similar to Buntin et al. (3) who point out that "92 percent of the recent articles on health information technology reached conclusions that were positive overall". However, most represent a series of opinions, usually of healthcare administrators, rather than data. Studies which have examined efficiency data have not found such an improvement (4).

My experience suggests that EMR actually creates waste of practioners' time and increases red tape. The collection of the required superfluous information detracts from patient care. Asking every patient at every visit a family history, review of systems and reentering past medical history and surgical history is very unlikely to produce any new clinically useful information and detracts from practioners focusing on the patient's problem. The recent VA scandal resulted from a performance-measurement system through the EMR that had become bloated and unfocused requiring the recording of multiple measures (often tied to administrative bonuses) of dubious or meaningless significance (5,6). These additional clerical tasks contributed to too few physicians being unable to care for too many patients. The private setting has become similarly afflicted. Performing the ever increasing meaningless measures required for reimbursement by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) or other third party carries is resulting in similar detriments in care and will likely result in outcomes similar to the VA.

In addition, the data must now be recorded on a template that is easily electronically retrievable. This saves third party clerical time because the clinic notes do not have to be abstracted. However, the clerical burden now falls onto the physician or office staff. It usually means the data is entered at least twice-once on the clinic note and once on the template. Everything from smoking to electronic prescriptions must be entered on a template. Sometimes this actually saves time but at others it is horribly detrimental. For example, yesterday my practice administrator and I spent 15 minutes trying to electronically send prescriptions to a local Walgreens pharmacy mostly because we could not electronically locate the store although we had the address and phone number. With the addition of these requirements, it now takes longer, in many cases much longer, to type the note and enter the data than it does to see the patient. This is driven by a requirement for the data to be entered in an EMR in order to receive reimbursement.

There are multiple commercially available EMRs. Each system may have its some unique issues and problems. The fact that institutions may decide to change from one EMR system to another, based on a number of factors, can have significant stress on the providers and may impact overall quality of care and safety during the “learning curve” to adapt to a new EMR. Even if the system stays with one product, there are frequent “upgrades” that require learning new processes. There is a limit to how many updates and changes can be effectively learned by physicians and other providers while maintaining efficiency. These issues need to be understood by health care administrators.

Duplicate Testing

It makes some sense that if results are available electronically that duplicate testing could be reduced. Unfortunately, the reality is that although the data might be recorded electronically, it is often not available. The various computers do not necessarily "talk" to each other and even when the do, retrieving the data can be problematic because of the multiple security hoops that need to be jumped through (remember HIPPA). Furthermore, sometimes the data is substandard. Yesterday, I saw a patient with COPD from smoking, a recurrent rectal carcinoma and a CT-PET scan positive for a 1 cm enhancing mass in the right upper lobe according to the radiologist. Yet, I could see no lesion on the small image that I could view on our computer. I decided the safest course of action was to repeat the test in 3-6 months. Had I been able to review an adequate image, the need to repeat the test might have been avoided. Similarly, other x-ray, laboratory and other data is frequently inaccessible.

CMS is largely responsible for this oversight. Although the federal government has spent over 30 billion in tax dollars since 2009 implementing EMRs, they are not standardized across facilities (7). Similar problems occurred at the VA. Although it was one computer system, multiple vendors who supplied radiology, pulmonary function, and other equipment were electronically incompatible with the VA system.

Save Lives By Reducing the Number of Errors in Medicine

This may eventually prove to be true, but the available data suggest that at least initially the opposite may be true at least for computerized physician order entry (CPOE). For example, a survey of the house staff at the University of Pennsylvania found that a widely used CPOE system facilitated 22 types of medication errors (8). More disturbing is data that mortality increased from 2.8% to 6.6% after CPOE implementation in one pediatric intensive care unit (9). Other studies have failed to demonstrate such an increase in mortality (10).

Unavailability of the EMR

It seems rather obvious but EMRs have to be as dependable as other electronic records such as banks. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case. For example, the VA system would periodically crash. Trying to care for a patient when no data is available and no orders can be written is problematic. Incidentally, the problem of the periodic crashes was because local administrators refused to increase the server capacity at the Veterans Integrated Service Network level (EMRs can utilize huge amounts of memory) until the system did crash. There seemed no consequences to those responsible when the EMR was unavailable.

Unauthorized Access to Patient Information

Equally obvious is data stored in EMRs is vulnerable to unauthorized access just as computers from the Pentagon, banks, Target and even Sony pictures have all been hacked. It seems unlikely that the data in the EMR is as well protected as military or financial data especially given the large numbers with access to the data and the need to access the data sometimes quickly in emergency situations. Interestingly, large breeches in EMRs at the VA seemed to have occurred not through healthcare professionals but through information technology (IT) or administrative personnel (11).

Rarely, medical computers are hacked with the intent of extorting money. The hacker encrypts the files and then demands money to unencrypt the data (12). Some physicians' offices who have been hacked now keep two sets of data, one electronic and another paper not only cancelling most of EMR's advantages but resulting in the time and effort of keeping two record systems.

Health Care Professionals Spending Less Time with the Patient

Although physicians complain about the time required to complete various aspects of the EMR (in my view justifiably), observations in the hospital suggest nurses may be even more affected. A never ending list of documentation facilitated by the EMR have robbed many nurses of what they found most satisfying about their profession, bedside nursing (13).

Poor Understanding of the Medical Record

Poor understanding of patient data remains a significant problem for everyone from the patient who may find the record confusing and frightening to the healthcare administrator who is not trained or skilled in the practice of medicine. A number of medical practices are utilizing “patient portals” in their EMRs that allow patients to review their records online. The knowledge that a patient will be able to review all information entered in their record seems likely to have an effect on physician documentation, particularly in certain areas such as potential substance abuse, mental health issues, or malingering. Review of the record by the patient may also create challenges in patient care. For example, a patient who has read a radiology report that states “malignancy cannot be excluded” may question a decision by the clinician not to do a biopsy because the risks of further testing or biopsy are not justified by what may be a very low likelihood of malignance. Confusion can result in numerous bad outcomes, but usually for the patient and/or the practioner. These are all new issues and the impact overall on patient care and the doctor-patient relationship are not clear.

Control

This might be the largest potential danger and most contentious aspect of the EMR. It revolves around who owns the medical record. Some believe patients should own their record, and similarly, administrators, CMS, insurance companies and practioners all believe that the EMR should be theirs, at least in part (14). Consequently, there are conflicts regarding what should and should not be recorded. Although this argument is far beyond this brief review, the implications are far-reaching and important.

Regardless of who is the ultimate owner of the medical record, it is quite clear that administrators in the hospital and large clinics and CMS and insurance companies can dictate both the content and form. Furthermore, it is quite easy to place requirements to complete the records or receive reimbursement. For example, completion of CMS' most recent "meaningful use" measures can be required for reimbursement, and similarly, information might be required before a document can be signed. This might be reasonable unless the requests are busywork or for predominately useless information. This can detract from the usefulness of the medical record. For example, at one hospital where I practiced there was an excellent gastroenterology department. They used a computer generated report for their procedures that usually resulted in about 5 typed pages. It satisfied all CMS, insurance company, JCAHO, and professional standards. However, it was difficult (some of my colleagues said impossible) to read and interpret timely and efficiently. Increasingly, we see office reports, consults, history and physicals, radiology reports, laboratory reports, and discharge summaries which approach the length of a Dostoyevsky novel and have little utility in conveying information useful in patient care. Furthermore, should any part of the medical tome be missing (remember bundles), CMS and insurance companies will gleefully deny payment while healthcare administrators will harass both nurses and physicians to complete the medical record according to CMS and the insurance company mandates. This results in practioner inefficiency. However, the solution is usually to hire more administrative personnel to make sure that the practioners work even harder and longer further decreasing efficiency both medical and administrative inefficiency.

Not usually mentioned as a danger, although it should be, is that the EMR can be alerted by the unscrupulous who may control the EMR. For example, Sam Foote told me a story that while at the Phoenix VA, he could place a request for back magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) but would later find that the order removed. At the time the hospital had overspent its fee basis budget and was actively discouraging the ordering of MRIs. Furthermore, we have seen radiology reports altered when a misreading was discovered without evidence of the original misreading present (Robbins RA, unpublished observations).

Conclusions

EMRs represent a potential boon to patient care and providers, but to date that potential has been unfulfilled. Data suggest that in some instances EMRs may even produce adverse outcomes. This result probably has occurred because lack of provider input and familiarity with EMRs resulting in the medical records becoming less a tool for patient care and more of a tool for documentation and reimbursement.

References

1. Jones KC. Obama wants e-health records in five years. InformationWeek Healthcare 2009. Available at: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/obama-wants-e-health-records-in-five-years/d/d-id/1075517? (accessed 2/27/2015).
2. Kizer KW. Prescription for change. 1996. Available at: http://www.va.gov/HEALTHPOLICYPLANNING/rxweb.pdf (accessed 2/272015).
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7. Whitney E. Sharing patient records is still a digital dilemma for doctors. NPR. March 6, 2015. Available at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/03/06/388999602/sharing-patient-records-is-still-a-digital-dilemma-for-doctors?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news (accessed 3/6/15).
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9. Han YY, Carcillo JA, Venkataraman ST, Clark RS, Watson RS, Nguyen TC, Bayir H, Orr RA. Unexpected increased mortality after implementation of a commercially sold computerized physician order entry system. Pediatrics. 2005;116(6):1506-12. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
10. van Rosse F, Maat B, Rademaker CM, van Vught AJ, Egberts AC, Bollen CW. The effect of computerized physician order entry on medication prescription errors and clinical outcome in pediatric and intensive care: a systematic review. Pediatrics. 2009;123(4):1184-90. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
11. Office of Inspector General. Report No. 06-02238-163. Review of issues related to the loss of VA information involving the identity of millions of veterans. Available at: http://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/VAOIG-06-02238-163.pdf (accessed 3/5/15).
12. Murphy T, Bailey B. Is your doctor's office the most dangerous place for data? Associated Press. February 9, 2015. Available at: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/health-care-records-fertile-field-cyber-crime-135744306--finance.html (accessed 3/6/15).
13. Thompson D, Johnston P, Spurr C. The impact of electronic medical records on nursing efficiency. J Nurs Adm. 2009;39(10):444-51. [CrossRef] [PubMed]
14. N Chesanow. Who should own a medical record -- the doctor or the patient? Medscape. January 13, 2015. Available at: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/837393 (requires subscription, accessed 3/6/15).

Reference as: Robbins RA. Brief review: dangers of the electronic medical record. Southwest J Pulm Crit Care. 2015;10(4):184-9. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13175/swjpcc035-15 PDF