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Definition of Stress
Stress is our reaction to events, environmental or internal, that challenge or exceed our adaptive resources.
Each of us deals with stress in our own way. Stress is not always problematic.
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Stress in medical school add to the normal baseline stress that all individuals experience. Stresses can be cumulative and/or traumatic.
Each person needs to determine whether their stress can be managed by themselves or need the assistance of others. Individuals have choices about how they manage their stress.
Effective coping strategies lead to stress reduction and improved functioning. Coping strategies that are not effective can lead to burnout and impairment.
Details on stress reducing methods are given later in the program .
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Definition of Burnout
Burnout is a state of mental and/or physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress.
[Girdino, DA, Everly, GS, and Dusek, DE. Controllng Stress and Tension, Allyn & Bacon, Needham Heights, MA, 1996]
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Burnout is defined as “a state of mental and/or physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress.” Note that research studies suggest that two of the major causes of burnout are bureaucratic atmospheres and overwork!
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Characteristics of Medical Students that Increase Risk for Burnout
- Perfectionism
- Need for control
- High need for achievement
- Exaggerated sense of responsibility
- Need to please everyone
- Obsessiveness
- Difficulty asking for help
- Excessive, unrealistic guilt
- To reveal emotions=weakness
- Difficulty taking time for oneself
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The process of burnout encompasses insidious changes in attitude, mood, and behaviors that have consequences on physician role performance, and on the quality of the medical services they provide. Many traits identified as being characteristics of good doctors, ironically, can also play a major role in the stress that leads to emotional exhaustion which leads to burnout.
Medical students and physicians, as a group, tend to be perfectionists, rigid in their thinking, compulsive, and skeptical. Medical students have a need for interpersonal dominance and control. Compulsiveness may drive students to overwork as a mechanism to cope with feelings of guilt of not doing enough. Students are inclined to deny their own personal problems and weaknesses. Burnout is pervasive among physicians, but, for many, the condition is stigmatized and the rule is “you just don’t talk about it.”
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Last Published: 3/23/2009 Print this page
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