Jump to comment:
- Page navigation anchor for Tackling Physician Burn-out: Too Little, Too Late?Tackling Physician Burn-out: Too Little, Too Late?
What is death, and why, as medics, are we so scared of its inevitability? These are difficult questions to answer in a society that desperately strives to preserve life. Granek and Bucham explored the unique insight of palliative care teams to tackle physician burnout(1). Healthcare professionals at all stages of training could benefit from these skills. Intervention must start during medical school.
Medical students have minimal experience with palliative care, with only a recent call to deliver consistent end-of-life care education(2). We feel that the best way to develop skills is for students to interact with professionals best-equipped with them.
Fortunately, as medical students in our penultimate year at Imperial College London, we are enrolled into the Integrated Clinical Apprenticeship, a scheme which fosters longitudinal learning in the community(3). This includes tutorials focused on medical humanities, some led by palliative care physicians, artists and literary experts. In these sessions, topics such as death, fallibility, and the role of the doctor are explored. Students are encouraged to reflect on their own emotions surrounding these challenging issues. These discussions lay the foundations to develop a culture of compassion and mutual support.
We believe that teaching the next generation of doctors the skills identified by Granek and Bucham is essential. These ‘soft’ but crucial skills must be nurtured early on, providing resilience to...
Show MoreCompeting Interests: None declared.