For this Philly doctor, relationships with patients help avoid burnout | Expert Opinion

You spend 12 hours on your feet operating. It is late in the evening when you scrub out. Hunger and thirst manifest as adrenaline wears off. You have been on call for two weeks and the finish line seems tantalizingly near.

Then, as you are about to leave the hospital, you receive a phone call. A young man just arrived in the intensive-care unit after a massive heart attack and needs your attention. He survived but his heart function was rapidly deteriorating.

With heavy steps, you carry the consent form to the waiting room, where his wife and other family members are anxiously waiting.

Burnout affects nearly a third of all physicians. Overwork, fatigue, a sense of losing control, and disillusionment all contribute to the problem as you navigate the challenging landscape of modern medicine.

Promoting balance through measures such as regulating work hours is a frequent response to addressing burnout. When nearing the breaking point, I have wanted to step away for a while.

When that young man arrived at the hospital, I was exhausted, and felt frustrated about doing more work. I was not as present in my conversations with patients and family as I had once been.

There must have been nearly 20 family members in the waiting room, all there for this one man. They were distressed and tearful. He had been healthy his entire life. We spoke for nearly an hour about the man, his condition, and the treatment he needed.

And, in retrospect, I am really glad that I took that time, as tired as I was. This encounter helped me view him not just as a patient with a grim prognosis, but as a loving father and husband who would fight to the utmost to regain his health.

This simple change in my perspective, which could be unlocked only by leaning in, made every day taking care of him more meaningful and rewarding.

The more I grow experienced as a resident, the more I am starting to discover the paradox of burnout. When I am nearing burnout, I find the solution is more philosophical than getting more rest or doing more hobbies. What we need is a reminder of meaningfulness, a restoration of faith.

This includes forming meaningful relationships with patients and family members and taking the time to genuinely listen to their stories. It means following up on their recovery even after they are no longer directly under your care. These encounters can help us discover nuances that transform how we view our patients, and ultimately, ourselves.

To truly overcome burnout, we need to fight to preserve these moments. When I reflect on some of the most rewarding experiences of my early career, the ones that have come to reinforce my calling as a surgeon have always been when I put in a little more — that extra hour of presence and conversation that reminded me of the human aspects of my job.

Of course, this is not to suggest that physicians do not need to be protected from overwork or other conditions that can jeopardize both provider and patient well-being. Our professionalism and hard work are not infinite resources, and we do not need to add more hours of mundane paperwork to our days.

But during moments when we feel near our breaking points, I hope that each of us will consider giving a little bit more of ourselves to find meaning in our patient encounters.

Sometimes, it is the last mile in a marathon that can transform the entire experience. Many aspects of our jobs and lives are outside of our control, but this is a choice that we often do have.

Several weeks later, I was rounding on my patients one evening when I ran into a man I didn’t know, dressed in a business suit. Then I saw his wife by his side and immediately knew who he was. They had come by after a dinner out to say thanks to the team.

The feelings of gratitude were mutual. Meeting this family that late, terrifying evening and learning about their bond saved me, too.

Jason Han is a cardiac surgery resident at a Philadelphia hospital.