Restoring Faculty Vitality in Academic Medicine When Burnout Threatens

Abstract

Increasing rates of burnout-with accompanying stress and lack of engagement-among faculty, residents, students, and practicing physicians have caused alarm in academic medicine. Central to the debate among academic medicine's stakeholders are oft-competing issues of social accountability; cost containment; effectiveness of academic medicine's institutions; faculty recruitment, retention, and satisfaction; increasing expectations for faculty; and mission-based productivity.The authors propose that understanding and fostering what contributes to faculty and institutional vitality is central to preventing burnout during times of change. They first look at faculty vitality and how it is threatened by burnout, to provide a framework for a greater understanding of faculty well-being. Then they draw on higher education literature to determine how vitality is defined in academic settings and what factors affect faculty vitality within the context of academic medicine. Next, they propose a model to explain and examine faculty vitality in academic medicine, followed by a discussion of the need for a greater understanding of faculty vitality. Finally, the authors offer conclusions and propose future directions to promote faculty vitality.The authors encourage institutional decision makers and other stakeholders to focus particular attention on the evolving expectations for faculty, the risk of extensive faculty burnout, and the opportunity to reduce burnout by improving the vitality and resilience of these talented and crucial contributors. Faculty vitality, as defined by the institution, has a critical role in ensuring future institutional successes and the capacity for faculty to thrive in a complex health care economy.

Becoming a coach: experiences of faculty educators learning to coach medical students

“…One-on-one coaching is proven to support medical learners' success academically and to facilitate individual self-knowledge, goal-setting, work-life balance, and reflection [3,9,10]. Coaching contributes to protection against burnout [1,[11][12][13] and fosters professionalism [4,7,11] by helping learners develop healthy habits and by addressing concerns early within the context of a trusted relationship. The American Medical Association (AMA) Coaching handbook has identified coaching as a "new and significant opportunity in medical education" [9].…”

Living comfortably in liminal spaces: Trickster and the medical educator

“…A number of recent studies that have examined the experiences of medical educators reveal how difficult it is to maintain a strong sense of purpose and identity when most of us inhabit at least two (and usually more) professional roles – clinician, scientist, researcher, teacher or manager – within this complex environment . We spend much of our time helping our students and trainees learn how to deal with the uncertainty that comes from being ‘no longer a student but not quite a doctor’, but we ourselves face similar challenges as we progress from a primary professional identity (such as that of doctor, researcher or scientist) towards a new identity that comfortably accommodates our medical educator role …”

The Canmore Declaration: Statement of Principles for Planetary Health

“…As we segue to health at the planetary scale, it is worth noting that, beyond the individual, vitality is oft-used in the context of community and ecological health; researchers commonly refer to (and develop indicators of) the 'vitality' of public communities, forest ecosystems, soils, bodies of water, fisheries, and the landscape in general. So, too, vitality of the 'business ecosystem', 'academic faculty', 'organizational structure', 'democracy', etc., is commonly used within the writings of experts in occupational research, political science and economics [27][28][29][30]. Hence, the vitality of ecosystems (as well as the vitality of particular species within them)-and our own vitality-is the common language of global health and high-level 'wellness'.…”