A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
I’m writing this as both an observation and confession.
The observation is that my professional colleagues are increasingly unwilling or unable to disengage from work-related technology in what would otherwise be considered “personal” time.
It is increasingly common to receive work-related emails or see non-urgent entries in the electronic health record (EHR) in the evenings, very early morning hours, and anytime over the weekend. Most dramatically, even when I know when someone is on vacation and physically away, it isn’t unusual for them to continue communicating much as if they were still at work. I’ll periodically send or copy a routine email to a colleague expecting nothing until they are back, receive a return out-of-office message indicating that they have limited access to email and are unable to respond, and within minutes a lengthy reply to the message shows up in my inbox.
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