Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. The word thanksgiving means giving of thanks to God, especially in a religious ceremony. Thanksgiving is that time of year when you have to be grateful for everything you have and celebrate the basic things: friends, health, family, and happiness.
Contributions of Medical professionals to Society
Most medical professionals view medicine as a calling to help others. Doctors dedicate themselves to public service. They serve our nation by ensuring our good health and caring for us. Doctors have always been at the forefront of helping society. They enter their field with a high level of compassion along with a strong interest in human biology, focused on providing care for the ill.
This has never been truer than in the current Pandemic. The world has been brought to a standstill due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. However, in this outbreak, the medical community including Nurses, Doctors, and the medical staff are the soldiers who are fighting this disease on the frontlines and are putting their lives at risk to keep us safe.
Burnout issue Among The Medical Professionals
During this pandemic, physician burnout has become a real issue. A June 2020 article published in the New England Journal of Medicine states that the primary reasons for Physician burnout were big changes in the healthcare system, including performance metrics and the widespread implementation of electronic health records (EHR), and this is not only restricted to the older generation of physicians but it has become clear residents, millennials and even medical students are showing signs of burnout.
The radical changes in the healthcare system were supposed to make physicians more productive and efficient, and have instead added more stress to their lives. The scale of the problem becomes more evident when we take into consideration the fact that it’s costing the healthcare system roughly $4.6 billion a year. Solutions have largely focused upon the physician, recommending exercise classes and relaxation techniques, and social hours for unwinding, easier access to child care, hobbies to improve free time, and ways to boost efficiency and maximize productivity.
There is little evidence that any of these measures have had a significant impact, as shown by the latest meta-study of 19 controlled studies analyzing a total of more than 1500 physicians. This data leads to the conclusion that the current solutions that are offered fail to address the bigger problem: a great lack of alignment between caregivers’ values and the new health care system. Using a financial ward as a primary motivation strategy seems practical and alluring.
Surprisingly even financial incentives haven’t worked to prevent or cure burnout. During a recent survey of more than 15,000 doctors in 29 specialties (Medscape National Physician Burnout and Suicide Report 2020), more than 50% of doctors indicated that they would be happy to give up at least $20,000 of their annual income in order to reduce their work hours; these doctors included millennials, who are among the lowest earners. A largely ignored field of organizational psychology provides an explanation and a roadmap for improving physician burnout.
Importance Of Thanking Medical Professionals
So, how does burnout relate to Thanksgiving? Thanking is important throughout the year however it’s very important our gratefulness at this time of year. It’s easy to forget to say thank you.
According to Harvard Medical School, the simple gesture of expressing gratitude to someone can make you happier and so does being the recipient of thanks. Gratitude is acknowledging the goodness in our lives. Gratitude is consistently and strongly associated with greater happiness. Gratitude assists people to feel more relish good experiences, positive emotions, improve their health, build strong relationships, and deal with adversity. Thanking your physicians can do wonders to remedy the burnout suffered by physicians.
Hence during this season of Thanksgiving be sure to express your gratitude and thank your physicians, nurses, and any other healthcare workers that you come across. This small gesture on your part can assist prevent burnout and help people to continue to move onward during these unprecedented times.
We would also like to express our gratitude to all the physicians and would like to assist them in all their medical billing requirements in whatever we can. This will reduce the workload on them and in turn reduce burnout. So that physicians can focus on the main task of curing people without having to worry about billing issues.
