Burnout, and fulfillment, in the profession of critical care medicine

Burnout is common among critical care providers and is associated with physical and psychological symptoms, compassion fatigue, decreased quality of care, and job turnover. To improve clinician well-being, the National Academy of Medicine recommends that we “measure it, develop and implement interventions, and then re-measure it”.

In May 2018, we began a Well-Being Initiative. We serially measured fulfillment and burnout across critical care rotations to inform strategies to optimize fulfillment and mitigate burnout. Based on findings of high burnout at the end of a traditional 14-consecutive-day rotation, we tested the Critical Care Societies Collaborative’s hypothesis that a strategy to mitigate burnout is to “limit the maximum number of days worked consecutively” by comparing well-being after 7- and 14-day rotations.