Preventing job burnout in medical students

Treating burnout in physicians can be difficult and the evidence to date is mixed and patchy. However, a recent paper in Medical Education [Med Educ. 2010 Oct;44(10):1016-26. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03754.x] provides some interesting insights on how we can try to prevent burnout in medical students. The researchers followed medical students prospectively and categorised students in three major groups; (1) no burnout (the resilient group), (2) initial burnout, but no burnout on follow-up (recovering group), (3) burnout continuously (chronic burnout group). Roughly, a third of students were classified in the resilient group. The researchers found that modifiable individual factors and learning climate characteristics including employment status, stress level and perceptions of the prioritising of student education by faculty members related to medical students’ vulnerability to burnout. The authors do not name it as such, but in my opinion, the factors identified by the authors all relate to organisational/educational climate. On the plus side, the fact that the identified factors are modifiable provides hope, and more importantly, the opportunity for us to test their hypotheses.