There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

The science of the total environment

https://soci.ucalgary.ca/manageprofile/sites/soci.ucalgary.ca.manageprofile/files/unitis/publications/233-32917/physician%2Bwellness%2Bmissing%2Bquality%2Bindicator.pdf

Physician wellness: a missing quality indicator.

Physician burnout, a work-related syndrome involving emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a sense of reduced personal accomplishment, is prevalent internationally. Rates of burnout symptoms that have been associated with adverse effects on patients, the healthcare workforce, costs and physician health exceed 50% in studies of both physicians-in-training and practicing physicians. This problem represents a public health crisis with negative impacts on individual physicians, patients and healthcare organizations and systems. Drivers of this epidemic are largely rooted within healthcare organizations and systems and include excessive workloads, inefficient work processes, clerical burdens, work-home conflicts, lack of input or control for physicians with respect to issues affecting their work lives, organizational support structures and leadership culture. Individual physician-level factors also play a role, with higher rates of burnout commonly reported in female and younger physicians. Effective solutions align with these drivers. For example, organizational efforts such as locally developed practice modifications and increased support for clinical work have demonstrated benefits in reducing burnout. Individually focused solutions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction and small-group programmes to promote community, connectedness and meaning have also been shown to be effective. Regardless of the specific approach taken, the problem of physician burnout is best addressed when viewed as a shared responsibility of both healthcare systems and individual physicians. Although our understanding of physician burnout has advanced considerably in recent years, many gaps in our knowledge remain. Longitudinal studies of burnout's effects and the impact of interventions on both burnout and its effects are needed, as are studies of effective solutions implemented in combination. For medicine to fulfil its mission for patients and for public health, all stakeholders in healthcare delivery must work together to develop and implement effective remedies for physician burnout.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/joim.12752

Physician burnout: contributors, consequences and solutions

Objective:To determine the incidence of burnout among American surgeons and evaluate personal and professional characteristics associated with surgeon burnout.Background:Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization that leads to decreased effectiveness at work. A limited amoun

Burnout and career satisfaction among American surgeons.

The global economic crisis has affected the Greek economy with unprecedented severity, making Greece an important test of the relationship between socioeconomic determinants and a population's well-being. Suicide and homicide mortality rates among men increased by 22.7% and 27.6%, respectively, between 2007 and 2009, and mental disorders, substance abuse, and infectious disease morbidity showed deteriorating trends during 2010 and 2011. Utilization of public inpatient and primary care services rose by 6.2% and 21.9%, respectively, between 2010 and 2011, while the Ministry of Health's total expenditures fell by 23.7% between 2009 and 2011. In a time of economic turmoil, rising health care needs and increasing demand for public services collide with austerity and privatization policies, exposing Greece's population health to further risks.

http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/Kondilis%20et%20al%20%282013%29%20Economic%20crisis%20restrictive%20policies%20and%20health%20Greece.pdf

Economic Crisis, Restrictive Policies, and the Population’s Health and Health Care: The Greek Case

Burnout in internal medicine physicians: Differences between residents and specialists.

There is an increasing realization that the connections between work and family life are of critical importance in contemporary society. The present study examined the relationship between job demands and burnout, and the mediational role of work–family interference (WFI) in a sample of Greek doctors (N = 162). The main findings are: (1) emotional job demands were found to be a strong independent predictor of both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization; (2) quantitative job demands were found to predict emotional exhaustion; (3) WFI was found to partially mediate the relationship between both quantitative/emotional job demands and emotional exhaustion; (4) additionally, WFI partially mediated the relationship between emotional job demands and depersonalization. The results and limitations are discussed with reference to the medical profession. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Work–family interference as a mediator between job demands and job burnout among doctors

From the Lab of Hygiene; Lab of Physi-ology, Medical School, Aristotle Univer-sity, Thessaloniki, Greece.Submitted May 31, 2007; acceptedJune 21, 2007.The ﬁrst and second author haveconducted the same amount of workand share ﬁrst authorship.Authors’ disclosures of potential con-ﬂicts of interest and author contribu-tions are found at the end of thisarticle.Corresponding author: E. Panagopoulou,Lab of Hygiene, 54124, Medical School,Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece;e-mail: efharis@the.forthnet.gr.© 2008 by American Society of ClinicalOncology0732-183X/08/2607-1175/$20.00DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2007.12.8751

Concealment of Information in Clinical Practice: Is Lying Less Stressful Than Telling the Truth?

The aim of this study was to analyse the prevalence of the most relevant clinical features of the diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in a sample of male patients with lupus as well as the incidence of the main causes of morbidity in a 5-year period after the diagnosis. A further aim of this study was to investigate the impact of gender on expression and morbidity of SLE. Data were collected from the medical records of 59 male and 535 female patients with SLE who were diagnosed at the hospitals in the region of Thessaloniki. Several differences in the expression and morbidity of the disease were found in relation to the gender of the patient. Male patients had a higher prevalence of thromboses, nephropathy, strokes, gastrointestinal tract symptoms and antiphospholipid syndrome when compared with female patients, but tended to present less often with arthralgia, hair loss, Raynaud’s phenomenon and photosensitivity as the initial clinical manifestations. During the 5-year follow-up, positive ass...

Alexis Benos

Papers

Economic Crisis, Restrictive Policies, and the Population’s Health and Health Care: The Greek Case

Burnout in internal medicine physicians: Differences between residents and specialists.

Work–family interference as a mediator between job demands and job burnout among doctors

Concealment of Information in Clinical Practice: Is Lying Less Stressful Than Telling the Truth?

Clinical expression and morbidity of systemic lupus erythematosus during a post-diagnostic 5-year follow-up: a male:female comparison.