Survey on burnout and wellbeing among trauma and orthopaedic surgeons

We are currently experiencing  a pandemic of healthcare worker burnout. The Physicians Foundation 2020 Physician Survey in the USA (conducted in September 2020) showed that current levels of burnout are at 58%; up from 40%  in 2018. Many physicians cite issues around the COVID-19 pandemic as drivers for this.

The BOA recently conducted a survey in collaboration with the Department of Trauma and Orthopaedics at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) NHS Trust to assess wellbeing among members of the BOA. The survey builds on an earlier study conducted by BSUH which found significant levels of moderate and high burnout within staff at the Trust’s major trauma centre (Caesar et al., 2020^[1]). The results of the survey will be published in due course and we hope it will provide a greater insight into burnout and wellbeing right across the membership.

The wellbeing of our members and wider colleagues is an important issue for the BOA. In December 2020 we held a webinar Coping with COVID: Supporting surgeons through the challenges of the Covid era.

The participants in the webinar have kindly provided either a short slideset or write-up now published in the Transient Journal, to provide some useful nuggets of ideas for others to use. These can be accessed through the links below:

• Musings of a ‘Wellbeing Newbie’ by Tony Clayson
• Supporting Doctors by Joanna Maggs
• Post Burnout by Ben Caesar
• SAK (Showing Acts of Kindness) and POW (Pearls of Wisdom) by Raju Ramesh

[1]Caesar B, Barakat A, Bernard C, Butler D. Evaluation of physician burnout at a major trauma centre using the Copenhagen burnout inventory: cross-sectional observational study. Ir J Med Sci. 2020;189(4):1451-6.