Resilience Training, Mindfulness Can Ease Emergency Department Stress

Educators like Beckman realize that a culture change to improve resilience must become a necessary part of medical education.⁶ Some of his recommendations include making wellness a metric for training; using reflection and talking about stressors, the fear of mistakes, and the positives of medical education; using interdisciplinary mindfulness training; promoting the use of guilt-free time for self-care; developing and discovering resilient role models and mentors; and including at least short times for movement, relaxation, yoga, meditation, or spirituality. Wellness among emergency physicians has been associated with exercise and leisure activities.⁷

In summary, the resources brought by organizations to address the problem of physician burnout primarily focus on improving wellness and entraining resilience. Clearly this focus, while beneficial, does not begin to address the increasing need for operational solutions at the organizational level to address the problem.⁸

The recently announced National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience is an example of the unified approach necessary to address the issues involved in professional burnout.⁹ Solving this problem will require cooperation at every level of the health care system.

Dr. Goett is assistant professor of emergency medicine and assistant director for advanced illness and bioethics at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark