The growing number of physicians evidencing symptoms of
burnout has many causes. Yet one element
stands out, according to research: a perceived loss of control
over their time, working conditions, and other stress contributors. ACP
has launched a Physician Well-being and Professional Satisfaction Initiative
that includes resources
promoting individual well-being, advocating for system changes, improving the
practice environment, and fostering local communities of well-being. ACP’s Patients
Before Paperwork is about challenging administrative tasks that contribute
to burnout.
Yet over the past three days, I’ve observed another
promising antidote to burnout:
individual and collective physician activism to change policies that
affect their daily work and professional development. Nearly 400 ACP members from 48 states and the
District of Columbia came to Washington, DC to participate in our annual Leadership
Day on Capitol Hill. Yesterday, they
learned about how to be effective advocates with their elected lawmakers, the
political and legislative environment in Congress, and the issues
that ACP was asking them to bring to Congress.
This morning, they heard from Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL),
chair of the Ways and Means health subcommittee, on the subcommittee’s Medicare
Red Tape initiative, which gives clinicians the opportunity to inform
lawmakers about administrative tasks that could be modified to make them less
burdensome, if not eliminated altogether. Then, former CMS administrator CMS
Andy Slavitt, recipient of ACP’s 2018 Joseph F. Boyle award for Distinguished Public
Service, suggested to the attendees that health care proposals should be
evaluated based on a simple test: does it make it easier or harder for patients
to get the care they need?
The attendees then headed to Capitol Hill, meeting with
members of Congress and staff from their own states, presenting ACP’s ideas, as
supported by their own personal experiences with patients, for improving
patients’ care and physicians’ daily lives and professional development.
What does all of this have to do with physician
burnout? The doctors and medical
students I observed this week were anything but a dispirited or despairing
group, but happy and enthusiastic activists for their patients, and their
profession.
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that
physician activism is a powerful antidote to burnout. If burnout is about losing control, activism
is about taking it back. Physician-activists
don’t accept a status quo that devalues the doctor-patient relationship, they
advocate for policies to make things better.
As Margaret Meade once said, “Never doubt that a small group of
thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only
thing that ever has.”
There is nothing more empowering than that.
