Not Everything is Burnout

Not Everything is Burnout

Constantly hearing about locum tenens as the solution to physician burnout?  At Mint, we have a different take on things.  Slapping the term “burnout” on a range of conditions might have gotten healthcare from there to here. At the very least, the term and attention paid to it allowed us to focus on the mental well-being of the physician workforce. But now as we move into the post-pandemic world, the reason that ‘burnout’ doesn’t apply that well is that there is a myriad of forces that lead clinicians to feel a variety of emotions, including being undervalued, being frustrated, perhaps being fearful, and being overextended.

To best convey and communicate physicians’ experience now, leaders and organizations need expanded vocabularies, strategies, and resources.  In conversation with physician and health system leaders, a variety of terms were put forth to describe what physicians have experienced since the pandemic began, including fear, anxiety, being overwhelmed, moral injury, fatigue, feeling out of character, loss of control, frustration, anger, dismay, and disillusionment.  Taking a break while a locum tenens physician fills in might be the solution, but is it always?

Reach out to your Mint Account Manager, to discuss the reality of your physician workforce challenges and our world-class solutions, delivered over the past 25 years.