2024-01-31 09:39:51
Dear friend, dear friend,
Vacations, I mean real vacations, are one of the keys to avoiding burn-out which is the English word for professional exhaustion.
These are people who have literally “burned out” their energy and who must take a long break and rest before being able to resume a “normal” life.
This is true for you, for your children, and for your caregivers.
For the latter, confirmation came from a study published on January 12, 2024 in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association)(1).
According to its authors, this would be the first work of this type carried out in North America.
In France, there is no precise data on the subject but we can still find some elements of comparison.
The authors of the study also compared the vacation time taken by doctors according to their specialty(1).
We learn that American anesthetists and specialists took more than three weeks of vacation per year.
Conversely, general practitioners, internists and emergency doctors were those who took the least.
And during the holidays, those who worked the least were emergency physicians and radiologists while neurologists and surgeons continued to work the most(1).
But that is perhaps not the most worrying thing.
Because the study also revealed that among all these doctors, 70% worked during vacations.
33% of these doctors worked at least half an hour a day during their vacation.
The researchers’ conclusion is that burnout among American doctors might be avoided if they took more vacation time.
But the authors specify that this is only valid if these vacations are truly a time of rest.
Busy work weeks
Not only do American doctors not take vacations, but they also work more than most other citizens of their great country.
The American doctor has a week type of 54 hours (2).
This figure is increasing slightly. It was 52 hours in the 1980s.
American doctors work on average 10 hours more per week than other Americans and 19 hours more than most French employees.
This workload and the stress of the profession perhaps explain why the level of heart problems and strokes is higher among American doctors than in the rest of the population (1).
An epidemic of burnout among American caregivers
In the United States, as in Europe, there is a very clear increase in the number of burnouts.
Between 2020 and 2021, their number increased by 38%(3).
In 2021, 61% of doctors experienced symptoms of burnout(3).
Clearly, more than half of the doctors were on the verge of collapse.
What is the situation in France?
In France, 51% of doctors currently present symptoms of burn-out(4).
In 4 years, this figure has increased by 20%.
25% of doctors suffering from professional burnout think regarding leaving medicine.
Among young doctors, 1 in 2 say they are ready to give up their profession or change disciplines.
However, in France, we can hardly blame the lack of holidays.
On average, doctors take 5 to 6 weeks of vacation per year, a figure which has increased in recent years(5).
They prefer short vacations of 7 to 10 days in a row.
They like to go to the sea and go on trips.
They have between two and five times more vacation time than their American counterparts.
And yet, the level of burnout from one country to another is similar.
Why so much burnout?
Obviously, the American and French health systems are very different.
So it is not so easy to compare them.
In both cases, however, it is distressing to see that a profession as beautiful as that of therapist has become the meeting place for the exhausted.
This is all the more worrying because to treat someone well, knowledge alone is not enough.
It also takes energy.
There is always a transfer of energy from the doctor to the patient.
What energy, what motivation might a washed-up doctor transmit?
For doctors, as for patients, this is not a secondary subject.
Loss of sense among doctors?
If I had to sketch out an attempt at an explanation, I would say that what kills doctors is the state matrix.
The more time passes, the less freedom doctors have, the less time they spend on their nursing work and the more they are asked to fill out paperwork and comply with obligations that make no sense.
They find themselves caught in the middle of political controversies because they make therapeutic choices.
This trend has increased significantly with covid 19.
Pressure from the State, but also from patients, has increased.
The doctor is nothing more than a pawn in a vast scheme that neither he nor the patient understands.
He is asked to apply pre-established protocols according to large statistical studies which have nothing to do with the human person in front of him.
Little by little, this profession has been emptied of its primary interest: it is a human profession on the borders of illness, life and death.
For this profession to regain its meaning and beauty, the doctor would need to regain a little freedom in prescribing.
In any case, that’s my intuition.
Ask homeopaths what they think!
Naturally yours,
Augustine of Livois
1706819518
#Institute #Natural #Health #Protection #doctor #vacation
