Annals of emergency medicine
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Questions about burnout, career satisfaction, and longevity of emergency physicians have been raised but no studies have examined tolerance for uncertainty as a risk factor for burnout. Primary objectives of this study are to assess the role of uncertainty tolerance in predicting career burnout and to estimate the proportion of emergency physicians who exhibit high levels of career burnout. ⋯ A large percentage of emergency physicians in this study, 32.1%, exhibited emotional exhaustion, which is the core symptom of burnout. Emotional exhaustion was not related to age or type of practice and was not mitigated by training in emergency medicine. Physicians studied did not feel anxiety because of general uncertainty, difficulty in disclosing uncertainty to patients, or admitting errors to other physicians. High anxiety caused by concern for bad outcomes was the strongest predictor of burnout. Despite exhibiting emotional exhaustion, the majority of respondents are satisfied with the career of emergency medicine.
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Editor's capsule summary for Cruz et al: (1) WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ON THIS TOPIC: Valid clinical research requires high-quality data collection. Physicians are commonly considered the standard by which valid prospective data are obtained. WHAT QUESTION THIS STUDY ADDRESSED: This study determined whether non-medically trained research assistants could reliably collect subjective historical data from emergency department patients with chest pain. ⋯ Research assistants demonstrated fair to excellent reliability (as defined by crude agreement and kappa) when obtaining cardiac histories and cardiac risk factors. HOW THIS MIGHT CHANGE CLINICAL PRACTICE: The results of this study will not change clinical practice. They do, however, provide evidence to support the use of trained research assistants for the collection of certain types of clinical data.
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Editorial Comment
Palliative emergency medicine: resuscitating comfort care?