Burnout - Don’t try to make the canary in the coal mine more resilient

Burnout is a problem in healthcare - it’s a problem for individuals, those who experience it and decide to leave a career they formerly loved, but it’s also a problem for our healthcare system. Burnout is associated with an increase in medical errors, and poor quality of care. Fundamentally it’s a patient safety issue. But, unlike other patient safety issues we tend to think about it, and try to prevent it, at an individual not systems level. However, Anthony Montgomery from the University of Macedonia, and Christina Maslach, from the University of California, Berkeley, urge us to start treating burnout as a systems issue. We hear about how we can spot burnout, and what can be done to try and mitigate it. Read their full analysis Burnout in healthcare: the case for organisational change https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l4774