LAUSR

Most will already have answers to this question. The WMA provided an explanation in its statement on physicians’ well-being. It alluded to increased workload and work hours, pressures from cost efficiencies, regulation and heightened public expectations, effects of mistreatment on those lower in the educational hierarchy, and the emotional stress inherent in medical practice coupled with providers’ sense of duty to patients and their loved ones. These many factors have contributed to an epidemic of burnout among physicians and other health care providers for which little relief is in sight. Worse yet, when the wellbeing of health professionals is compromised, patients suffer. The addition to the Declaration of Geneva was a recognition that making patients our ‘first consideration’ requires some consideration for ourselves.