ABSTRACT
The US physician burnout epidemic is gaining increasing prominence not only in health-care circles but also in the popular media. In this chapter, the authors delineate the burnout epidemic in the context of palliative care and discuss strategies to combat it. Alarmingly, a survey of the palliative care workforce conducted jointly with the burnout survey suggested that a significant proportion of respondents intend to leave the field in the next 5-15 years; behind retirement, the most common reason cited by respondents was burnout. Burnout has serious consequences to the individual and the workplace, as well as considerable implications to the palliative care workforce, the health-care system as a whole, and the patients they serve. Research increasingly suggests that focusing solely on individual resiliency is less powerful than combining individual- and organizational-based interventions, and it is recognized that organizational measures are necessary to fully address palliative care burnout. .
