Caring for patients is a stressful endeavor. Taking responsibility for the life of
an ill person caries with it tremendous benefits and burdens. For a patient, the benefit
lies clearly in the restoration of health, and the possibility of a return to a normal,
or acceptable lifestyle. The burden for the patient lies, ultimately, in the possibility
of death, but also, in the potential for pain and discomfort during the healing process
and, even worse, in the risk of partial success leading to chronic disability and
discomfort. But what about the clinician? What benefit and burden do clinicians experience
in the process of caring for patients? For caregivers, the benefit lies in diagnosis
and management of a patients' illness that leads to recovery deemed satisfactory to
the patient. Clinicians are fond of talking about the enormous satisfaction derived
from seeing a patient recover and return to a valued life. Needless to say, this is
particularly true for critical care clinicians, who witness patients come close to
death and then ultimately recover and return to their families. Every critical care
clinician will be able to describe the sense of satisfaction, and yes, pride, experienced
when, after a protracted intensive care unit (ICU) stay, a patient returns much later
walking and looking healthy. But what about the burden to clinicians? Much has been
written about burnout in clinical settings. Surprisingly, very little has been written
about burnout among critical care clinicians, even though it is a common topic of
conversation in physician and nursing lounges.
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribers receive full online access to your subscription and archive of back issues up to and including 2002.
Content published before 2002 is available via pay-per-view purchase only.
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Critical Care ClinicsAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Survey of perceived stress and work demands of consultant doctors.Occup Environ Med. 1996; 53: 217-224
- Predicting and preventing physician burnout: results from the United States and the Netherlands.Am J Med. 2001; 111: 170-175
- Work satisfaction of general practitioners and the quality of patient care.Fam Pract. 1985; 2: 128-135
- Is the professional satisfaction of general internists associated with patient satisfaction?.J Gen Intern Med. 2000; 15: 122-128
- Physicians' characteristics influence patients' adherence to medical treatments: results from the Medical Outcomes Study.Health Psychol. 1993; 12: 93-102
- Stress, satisfaction and burnout among Dutch medical specialists.Can Med Assoc J. 2003; 168: 271-275
- Who is sicker: patients—or residents? Residents' distress and the care of patients.Ann Intern Med. 2002; 136: 391-403
- Satisfaction, commitment, and psychological well-being among HMO physicians.West J Med. 2001; 174: 18-19
- Satisfactions, dissatisfactions, and causes of stress in medical practice.JAMA. 1979; 241: 1483-1486
- Mental health of hospital consultants: the effects of stress and satisfaction at work.Lancet. 1996; 347: 724-728
- Staff stress and job satisfaction in a children's hospital.Arch Dis Child. 1989; 64: 114-118
- Helping the clinician cope with death in the ICU.in: Curtis J.F Rubenfeld G.D Managing death in the intensive care unit, the transition from cure to comfort. Oxford University Press, New York2001: 165-182
- Physician burnout.Ann Intern Med. 2001; 135: 145-148
- Making a personal relationship with death.in: Curtis J.F Rubenfeld G.D Managing death in the intensive care unit, the transition from cure to comfort. Oxford University Press, New York2001: 31-36
- Acknowledging death.in: Gimian C The essential chögyam trungpa. Shambhala Publications, Boston (MA)1999: 127-133
Article info
Identification
Copyright
© 2004 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
