Preventing Compassion Fatigue and Burnout

Presented by: Dr Jenn Hannigan MD CCFP(PM)

The practice of medicine is:

an art, not a trade;

a calling not a business;

a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.

-Sir William Osler

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Compassion Fatigue:

• “the cost of caring”
• Secondary or vicarious traumatization
• Symptoms parallel to PTSD
  • Hyperarousal (poor sleep, irritability)
  • Avoidance (“not wanting to go there”)
  • Re-experiencing (intrusive thoughts/dreams when triggered)

Burnout:

• Emotional exhaustion
• Reduced personal accomplishment and commitment to the profession
• Depersonalization
  • A negative attitude towards patients
  • Personal detachment
  • Loss of ideals

How can we mitigate burnout:

• Mindfulness Meditation
• Reflective Writing
• Adequate supervision and mentoring
• Sustainable workload
• Promotion of feelings of choice and control
• Appropriate recognition and reward
• Supportive work community
• Promotion of fairness and justice in the workplace

Between stimulus and response there is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

  -Viktor Frankl

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Getting Started with Meditation:

• Center for Mindfulness http://www.umassmed.edu/cfm/
• Full Catastrophe Living – Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD
  • Guided meditations on CD
• The Iris Center in Fredericton
• Silent Retreat
• Mindfulness Mondays (SJRH)

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