This is an excellent review of the topic. They also describe a model for intervention and – most importantly – make the case that caring about physician wellness is important for patients. This is an article that will help anyone making an argument to improve the workplace for physicians.
Lancet. 2009 Nov 14;374(9702):1714-21.
Physician wellness: a missing quality indicator.
Wallace JE, Lemaire JB, Ghali WA.
Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada. jwallace@ucalgary.ca
When physicians are unwell, the performance of health-care systems can be suboptimum. Physician wellness might not only benefit the individual physician, it could also be vital to the delivery of high-quality health care. We review the work stresses faced by physicians, the barriers to attending to wellness, and the consequences of unwell physicians to the individual and to health-care systems. We show that health systems should routinely measure physician wellness, and discuss the challenges associated with implementation.
PMID: 19914516 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]