Physician burnout or joy: Rediscovering the rewards of a life in medicine. Int J Womens Dermatol 2020;6:34-36. [PMID: 32042882 PMCID: PMC6997840 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijwd.2019.12.001]

Physician burnout levels and associated factors in The Covid-19 pandemic

Introduction: Burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment, is frequently observed in physicians. Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine burnout levels and associated factors in physicians during the pandemic. Material and Method: This cross-sectional study was performed online with 288 physicians from various fields in Erzurum. Sociodemographic questions and the Maslach Burnout Inventory represented the data collection tools. The data were collected online in May and June 2021. Statistical analysis: Descriptive statistics, Student's t and ANOVA tests And Multiple ordinal logistic regression analysis were used. p values <0.05 were regarded as significant. Analysis was performed on SPSS 22. Results: Physicians' mean emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment component scores were 20.1±8.3, 6.7±4.5, and 21.1±4.5, respectively. Analysis showed that 49.7% of physicians exhibited moderate-high emotional exhaustion, 35.8% high-moderate depersonalization, and 69.8% signs of low personal accomplishment. Job title, regret concerning selecting the medical profession, satisfaction with the working environment, number of additional monthly out-of-hours shifts worked, regular sporting activity, and assessment of the physical conditions in the working environment emerged as factors affecting burnout components at regression analysis. Conclusion: The participants' burnout levels were high. The planning of effective interventions addressing individual and work-related factors with a holistic approach is essential to halt this rapidly growing epidemic.

The Planning Fallacy in the Orthopedic Operating Room

The planning fallacy posits that humans tend to underestimate the amount of time needed to complete a project and that greater complexity results in a larger difference in that estimation. If this phenomenon is present in the orthopedic operating room, it could lead to negative impacts on patients, their families, and physicians themselves. Nine fellowship-trained orthopedic surgeons at one institution were asked to give an estimate of their operative and total room times over the course of three months. Over 759 cases, the surgeons underestimated the total room times by 17.3% (p = 0.034) but did not underestimate their operative times (p = 0.590). The surgeons improved estimation of their operative time for all cases from 13.6 to 10.9 minutes of their actual time (p = 0.031) by comparing the absolute difference for the surgeons' first 25% to the last 25% of cases. Procedures performed at the hospital underestimated operative and total room times by 8.9% and 7.4% compared to the ambulatory center, which overestimated operative times by 6.0% and underestimated total room times by 3.8% (p < 0.001). We found that the planning fallacy does exist in certain situations within the orthopedic operating room.