Healthcare Professional Burnout Essay

Medical and Healthcare Professionals. Burnout affects the medical and healthcare field, which includes physicians, nurses, and other personnel. According to Edwards and Dirette (2010), healthcare professionals are known as the profession with the highest risk for stress and burnout. Research has depicted that ICU physicians cope with high levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and decreased personal achievement (Guntupalli, Wachetel, Mallampalli, & Surani, 2014). Moreover, research has shown a high prevalence of burnout among physicians, which includes one-third of physicians that have experienced burnout (Romani & Ashkar, 2014). Burnout is often caused by the physician’s inability to balance their personal and professional life (Romani & Ashkar, 2014). In addition, 45.8% of physicians report having at least one symptom of burnout (Romani & Ashkar, 2014). Among ICU physicians, the common causes of burnout include overwhelming and difficult work, being powerless to change, and making the impossible happen (Guntupalli, Wachetel, Mallampalli, & Surani, 2014). Furthermore, burnout increases medical errors and decreases job

Edward and Dirette (2010) described how occupational therapist experience burnout due to their direct work environment with clients. Factors such as role conflict, lack of supervision, lack of professional identity, staff recruitment and retention, and increasing demands are all risk factors that cause stress among occupational therapist. Research found that the lack of personal accomplishment, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization were experienced by occupational therapists. Moreover, these factors were related to the lack of professional identity among those within the field. This is due to the profession having a broad practice framework that tends to overlap with other professions within the