Summary Of The Personal Toll Of Practicing Medicine By Elaine Shattner

In her article The Personal Toll of Practicing Medicine, Elaine Schattner issues the physician burnout due to work overload and physical demands based on her personal experience as a working physician who specialized in blood diseases and cancer, cell biology laboratory researcher with one time NIH grant, teaching professor as well as a wife and a mother of her two children. She argues that there is few to not existing resources and support for medical providers who experience toll on their health as a result of increasing demands and pressure during everyday workloads. She asserts that clinicians need support, multiple resources, back-up, rest, and protection in order to promote long-term health and maintain compassionate healthcare for their patients.
At age of six, Schattner developed scoliotic spine which required implantation of a steel rod along her spine followed by her hospitalization that influenced her career choice. She described her early experience as a physician to be a challenging yet satisfactory. During her two pregnancies, she managed procedures and

Gundersen argues that decrease in "moral" of physicians caused by their constant increased demands, sleep deprivation, and overall work overload such as described in Schattner experience as a physician. But, Gundersen also stated that physicians like Schattner still loved to spend time with their patients and felt great satisfaction in doing so. But, doctor-patient quality of interpersonal connection and unethical healthcare approach was evident in Schattner article when she described her superior's suggestion for decreasing time with her patients. Gundersen insist that well defined policies on workload and psychological support are crucial to fixing the