Last updated on November 21, 2022
As Las Vegas is opening up the economy and social life, the essential and frontline workers have been working nonstop to support those who are fighting the coronavirus. However, there is a concern for all doctors and medical workers; the Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating burnouts among health care professionals.
Burnouts are syndromes characterized by negative attitudes, emotional exhaustion, and a lack of empathy for patients. These causes create a burnout, and the coronavirus outbreak has added more of its factors, such as the overwhelming number of patients, following social distancing rules, lack of resources and information, etc. According to the American Medical Association, depersonalization also characterizes burnouts.
Because of the higher rate of burnouts experienced by doctors, different medical organizations are producing professional help. Statistically, the AMA, the Mayo Clinic, and Stanford University School of Medicine are concerned for U.S. doctors because almost 44% of U.S. physicians exhibited at least one symptom of burnouts in 2017. Probably many more physicians and nurses are experiencing burnouts since 63% of nurses in the U.S. have been reported encountering burnout symptoms before this crisis happened. Additionally, in March 2020, researchers in China conducted a cross-sectional study. This study involved 1, 257 health care workers during the coronavirus pandemic and totaled troubling results of burnouts.
For healthcare professionals to avoid exhaustion, Optum, a healthcare company, and Southwest Medical, one of Nevada’s largest medical groups are providing monthly Moment Health mindfulness presentations to employees and doctors. To help the current and future generation of doctors burnout less, some schools such as the UNLV School of Medicine were setting up a curriculum. These skills, such as meditation, which the curriculum features, existed before.
In addition to raising awareness, how can our current doctors prevent burnouts from the excessive stress of the Covid-19 pandemic? Reversing the world back to normal after this pandemic is hard enough, but healing the healers is one extraordinary and challenging task occurring in the medical field.
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