Radiologist burnout: proven strategies to restore balance
Radiologist burnout: proven strategies to restore balance
Radiologist burnout is a serious concern in the medical field. The job can be very demanding, as radiologists often have to deliver day-in day-out news to patients about their condition, with their expectation to always be right. Indeed, according to the The Medscape Physician Burnout and Depression Report 2023, radiology is among the most stressful specialties for physicians, with 54% of radiologists reported to experience burnout. Even professionals with great passion for their job can lose motivation and feel frustrated, sometimes leading to errors they would not ordinarily make—and as a result, compromised patient care.
Working extra hours is a common practice among radiologists. In fact, half of the respondents of the Medscape survey said that spending too much time at work contributes the most to burnout.
Isolation
The adoption of PACS and EMR in medical practices has decreased interactions between referring physicians and radiologists. As a result, radiologists can feel disconnected from the team and less involved in patient management and decision-making. The Covid outbreak made this even worse. And passing long hours secluded in a dark cubicle can be depressing, further exacerbating radiologist burnout.
Too many administrative duties
Radiologists often face a heavy burden of bureaucratic tasks, such as paperwork and charting, cut into the time radiologists have to spend on interpreting images—the job they are there for. This overload can lead to increased fatigue and contribute to radiologist burnout.
The Relative Value Unit (RVU) system’s influence on radiologist burnout
Physician productivity is a major factor influencing income—which makes it an additional source of stress.
The importance of each of these factors will vary from practice to practice and for each individual, with the amount of work and degraded self-esteem the key components.
What can be done to reduce radiologists’ burnout?
Tackling the cause of burnout is very much individual based and there is no magic wand. Help can come from three types of remedies that will most likely have to be combined. Time, complexity and cost of deployment of these solutions will have to be carefully considered of course.
6 strategies of preventing radiologist burnout include:
Interactions with colleagues and physicians of other specialties, peer support, and coaching may help
alleviate the burden of radiologist burnout while increasing overall work efficiency.
Involving additional personnel
Hiring assistants and room coordinators to deal with administrative tasks and manage phone calls would allow radiologists to concentrate on their primary responsibility – reading images. This may help reduce stress and contribute to the mitigation of radiologist burnout.
2- Work policies to address radiologist burnout
Creating a positive work environment
Creating a more hospitable reading room environment, furnished with ergonomic equipment, where several radiologists can work in the same room, can facilitate the exchange of opinions on cases. This collaborative atmosphere can help radiologists combat the feeling of isolation that contributes to their burnout.
More flexible compensation structure
Creating a compensation structure based not only on RVU productivity but also other factors, such as teaching or research activities, could alleviate pressure, and improve radiologists’ motivation.
3- Technology enablers to mitigate radiologist burnout
Implementation of teleradiology
The use of teleradiology in medical centers may help to lessen workload and let radiologists be more flexible in planning their working schedule, including work from home. This flexibility can significantly contribute to reducing radiologist burnout.
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI in radiology) to combat burnout
AI has been a very emotional subject lately, in radiology especially, ranging from hype to fear and back.
AI can be used in radiology in several ways to alleviate a number of the causes of radiologist burnout:
Reduce tedious tasks. Automation of repetitive tasks is what machines are best at doing! This includes sorting cases against defined criteria.
Be systematic and thorough at every hour, every time. Computer algorithms never get tired and absolutely always do the same thing. That leaves time and mental space to radiologists to look for the odd and unpredictable, further further alleviating the stress associated with radiologist burnout.
When the purpose of using it is clearly identified, AI can bring the highest magnitude of relief amongst all solutions discussed here. It reduces workload and mental pressure, yet leaves radiologists in control, and more importantly with the best part of their job: the satisfaction of searching and finding abnormalities in images.
MammoScreen AI identifies findings on screening mammograms assigning them a colored-score for easier interpretation. A green score indicates that the case is likely benign, yellow means it’s worth having another look, and red signals that your special attention is needed on the mammogram. With MammoScreen, you can ease your worries and gain confidence, knowing you have a reliable second opinion.
Experience the benefits of our AI for yourself! Get your free MammoScreen demo to see how it can contribute to reduce stress in your workplace.
All these strategies, combined with radiologists’ better care for their own well-being—eating right, getting exercise, trying a relaxation practice such as meditation, taking breaks at work can bring a lot of relief to radiologists, whether or not they’re battling with burnout.
Burnout is taken seriously, but not often tackled systematically and most efficiently. Listening to what is the perceived most important factor and addressing it head-on is essential. By dealing with the factors that cause radiologists to burn out, everybody wins—the physician, the practice, and above all, the patients.
