Kathleen Rowland, MD, MS
Change is here, and more is coming. In medicine, we often perceive change, especially external change from hospital systems or payers, to be a threat. We feel a loss of control, which can lead to anger, resentment, and burnout.1 A survey of 3,000 US physicians done by a staffing company found that 58% of physicians who left medicine in 2013 reported doing so because they didn’t want to practice in an era of health care reform. This is more than stated they left because of economic factors such as malpractice insurance or reimbursement concerns (50%).2 The changes we face can feel overwhelming, and we have to take measures to make the changes less daunting.
Being resilient does not mean that we become pushovers. The goal of teaching resilience to change is to increase the sense that we are able to react to, triage, and adapt to changes while maintaining the core of who we are: physician teachers and healers. We can fight unwinnable battles or choose good ones. We can hold out on changing until the demand to do so is punitive, or we can adopt the change at a comfortable pace. We often do not choose the changes we face, but can choose the way we respond. As we restore that independence, we can reduce our risk of burnout and increase our satisfaction with practice.
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