Unless

The stagnation of medication education kills me sometimes. 

Metaphorically, of course.

During Medicine, I attended a half-day conference regarding medical professional burnout. My superiors presented and discussed many aspects regarding this phenomena, including deeply it can affect performance and shorten physician professional lifespan. As I listened to these discussions, a few things became apparent to me.

What struck me most was that there was an abundance of discussion on the phenomena but absolutely no plan at all on how to address it. By now, any greening medical student could tell you the effects of burn out and stress from medical education. It is abundantly clear as most of us have suffered these experiences or known of others who do. However, the conclusions being drawn at this conference were merely that we need to address these issues. The panel asked for suggestions and ways to implement preventative strategies, but it was appalling to me how nothing concrete had been done about this at all. I have seen the attrition of students each year - students leaving because having any sort of bump in life whilst attending medical school could mean the death sentence to a medical career. I have seen exuberant students coming into the medical education become jaded and find the necessity to take medications just to get out of bed. What is being done about this? After numerous articles, publications, and conferences, what has really been done about burn out? 

Nothing.

We preach to the choir because outside of medical professionals, no one wants to hear this story. We can keep highlighting how important things need to change, but it won't make a difference if nothing is done about it. In truth, no patient wants to think of their physician as the fragile and extremely human being that he/she is. Patients come in to be treated; not the other way around. 

But, to the patient population, which is the wholesome population, I think this is something that is necessary and important to consider. We are trained for the entirety of our medical education that 

THE PATIENT IS A PERSON. NOT A CONSTELLATION OF SYMPTOMS

And while we take in the full social history, the family history, worries and errors that make our patients human, we begin to compartmentalize and become less and less - human. We are not built to take in the trauma and life stories of others without consequence. To cope, we need to learn to find outlets or feel "less". We learn to box frustrations and feelings of inadequacy when we fail our patients into undealt-with pieces. The patient logs never end, and our responsibilities to keep up and simultaneously learn force us to shove these boxes under the bed. Leave it for last. Psychiatrists in-training are assigned to an experienced psychiatrist through their course of learning to learn to cope with the obstacles that come with having to deal with such heavy and potentially disturbing patient profiles. The reality is, almost all physicians and physician in-trainings have experienced and interacted with such difficult patients. The sheer volume of complaints that physicians hear everyday is draining. It is clear that there is a need to support our physicians and trainees with regimented ways to cope instead of "wellness weeks" and mild "group therapy discussions" that are held once in a blue moon by student affairs. Aggressive treatment is needed here, but no one is willing to own up and receive it. 

For most students, medical school is one of the most traumatic experiences that we undergo. Placing intelligent and aggressive students in a competitive environment (whether intended or not) through rapid curricula that inundates any normal human with too much information - in some ways, it seems less than humane. And as tough people that we are, we don't ask for the help we need. We stiffen that upper lip, and we cope. Because that's how it's always worked for us. And because no one else other than the medical professionals really care about how we get through medicine as long as we are competent physicians, nothing gets done. No one is OUR advocate. 

I think, what the populous needs to understand that not feeling comfortable in becoming involved in these matters will only compound the problem and continue to result in physician burnout. Eventually, this means sub-optimal care and more mistakes. If workers have worker compensation rights and organizations to back up their humane treatment, how does it make sense that physicians are one of the lease supported population? The stigma that physicians are well off and intelligently coping doesn't help others sympathize with the difficulties that come with the profession. And unless the people start standing by their physicians for their rights, physicians will continue put their wellbeing in the backseat until the point of breaking. 

Unless.