NEJM Open Forum: Identifying and Preventing Occupational Burnout

Hey guys, happy Monday!

I've been asked to be a moderator for a New England Journal of Medicine open forum discussion on “Identifying and Preventing Occupational Burnout." I have personally experienced burnout, so it's very important to me to avoid burnout and help my peers do the same. (It's also important to laugh about it.) So I'm honored by the invitation and very excited to participate in the discussion. 

This is actually part 2 of a 6 part discussion. This part is led by the American Medical Women's Association (AMWA) and will focus on the specific challenges that cause female physicians to burn out. As a moderator, I'll be posting some [hopefully] thought-provoking questions and topics and responding to comments. Everyone is welcome to participate (or just lurk, if that's your thing). The topic kicks off tomorrow (Tuesday March 24th) at 6AM EST. Click here to see the conversation!

(There are a lot of other interesting topics already underway, so I encourage you to check those out as well.) 

Please share your experiences with burnout in the comments below!

Fun With Rounding!

Lately I've been joking with my classmates about rounds. It's really interesting how well rounds match the personalities of the people in that specialty. Internal Medicine rounds are notoriously long, mostly because each patient has a tremendously complicated medical history and multiple possible etiologies for their chief complaint. But most of the people on the Medicine team are just waiting to subspecialize, and each of the subspecialties have their own unique rounding style.

Rheumatologists don't mind discussing antibodies all day. Nephrologists are all geniuses who can evaluate weeks of labs in a few seconds. Neurologists are extremely cerebral (pun intended) and can discuss a single image or lab at length. Stroke rounds were by far the longest rounds I've ever experienced. One day we just didn't finish rounding. It got to be 5 PM and the residents had to put in orders before checking out to the night float, so we didn't see the last few patients as a team. That was interesting...

And then Surgery… Ah, Surgery rounds, the very best of all rounds. (Since I last posted I've decided to apply to general surgery, but that's another topic for another day.) Surgery rounds are just like surgeons: fast, accurate, and efficient. On Pediatric Surgery we rounded on roughly 40 patients in less than an hour and a half, and not a single detail was overlooked. It was beautiful.

Feel free to share your best and worst rounding experiences in the comments below.