A recent survey of surgical residents regarding their personal and professional well-being revealed that while most of them enjoyed going to work, they had many serious issues.
All 19 surgical residency programs in the New England region were invited to participate, and 10 did so. Of 363 trainees contacted, 166 (44.9%) responded to the survey with 54% of respondents saying they lacked time for basic health maintenance. For example, 56% did not have a primary care physician and were "not up to date with routine age-appropriate health maintenance such as a general physical examination, laboratory work, or a gynecologic examination."
I am not surprised that young men and women averaging 30 years of age or less have no primary care physician? I wonder what percentage of young people who are not surgical residents have one.
Should asymptomatic people in this age group or anyone in any age group have a general physical examination and lab work?
An article published ahead of print in Archives of Surgery
[full text here], reported the results of a survey of over 7100 members of the
American College of Surgeons. Over 52% said they had experienced at least one
work-home conflict in the 3 weeks preceding the survey. Work-home conflicts
were more common in those surgeons who were young, female and had young
children.
Surgeons with a recent work-home conflict were more likely to have
symptoms of burnout, depression, alcohol abuse/dependency, and were less likely
to recommend surgery as a career option to their children.
A surgeon I follow on Twitter, Dr. Mary L. Brandt, posted a link to a
video produced by Redefining Surgery, “a project sponsored by the
Association for Academic Surgery, the Society for University Surgeons, and the
American College of Surgeons to provide information for young bright students
contemplating a career in Surgery.” This 12 minute series of interviews with
surgeons young and old, male and female was intended to show how one can be a
surgeon and still have a life.
Here
is the video. Just watch a few minutes and you will get the idea.
I
watched it all the way to the end just to see if anyone really seemed to believe
what they were saying. My reaction was that most of the participants lacked
conviction. It all seemed rather forced, as if they were trying to persuade themselves
that all was well with the balance between family and work.
So what’s
the point?
I am
surprised that only about half of surgeons polled admitted to having recent work-home
conflicts. When my children were younger and I was a surgical chairman with a
fairly manageable schedule, I still faced at least two or three work-home
conflicts per week. Despite what the video rather unconvincingly tries to
portray, surgery does present huge challenges to maintaining balance in life.
Is
there a solution? I’m not sure. I know many people with responsible jobs in
finance and business. They have stress, burnout and work-home conflicts too. Also
note the recent buzz about Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic
piece on why women “can’t have it all.”
Maybe
there is no answer. I would be interested in hearing what you have to say.
