A 2019 study by LSU Health New Orleans Radiologist Dr. Bradley Spieler indicates burnout affects more than 50-percent of healthcare professionals. Spieler says burnout is now considered an illness and it even has its own billing code. He says, “it is something that we as a medical community need to talk about more and pay more attention to as it is a healthcare crisis.”
And there are reports that burnout has increased even more with COVID.
Spieler says the radiologist are at a higher risk with a reported 71-percent of the practice indicating some form of burnout. Spieler says contributing factors among radiologists include they work in low light so they can read images better and it’s a primarily sedentary profession. “I think those things coupled with the fact you have depersonalization, you have less contact with other physicians, patients, other individuals as a radiologist,” said Spieler.
And since COVID, he says more healthcare providers are choosing to practice remotely via telemedicine and isolation is a contributing factor of burnout.
Spieler notes the increase in burnout is not exclusive to healthcare. Other mainstream professions with similar work environments are also seeing more mental and physical exhaustion. He tells LRN.com, “those people who tend to function in an office sit longer, less mobility, less contact with others tend to experience burnout at higher rates.”
Story by Brooke Thorington
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