Burnout has been a descriptive term for years, but lately, psychologists and others have assigned it specific characteristics with a view toward being able actually to study and measure it. One common definition of burnout is a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, detachment, and feelings of ineffectiveness. The PICU environment is often one of high stress, so it’s a place where this can happen. We’ve known that informally for a long time. The best measure of this probably is that you don’t find many pediatric intensivists my age (66) who are still practicing; a large number go into something less stressful and with more regular hours. A recent study appearing in the principal journal in our field, Critical Care Medicine, attempted to measure more precisely how common burnout is among my colleagues. There have been many studies about burnout in physicians generally but none specific to pediatric critical care.
The authors used a voluntary online survey in which they identified by professional societies and other means 686 pediatric intensivists and asked them to answer a series of questions. Note this means the subjects were self-selected, decreasing the power of the findings. Also note how few pediatric intensivists there actually are in this country — we continue to have a shortage. The questions were in the form of an often used and validated tool for assessing burnout — the Maslach Burnout Inventory. 253 intensivists responded. Full disclosure: I didn’t respond, mainly because I just didn’t get around to it.
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