Tag Archives: burnout

Burnout, the Force Propelling Sonographers Away From Their Calling

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Amidst the bustling corridors and resonant discussions of the 2024 AIUM Ultracon conference, a groundbreaking revelation emerged from the forefront of medical imaging research. Shedding light on the intricate interplay between Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WRMSDs) and the often-overlooked specter of sonographer burnout, the collaborative inquiry of my colleagues and I sought merely to confirm existing associations but ultimately challenged entrenched assumptions. What materialized from our investigation was a surprising insight: burnout, eclipsing the physical strains of the profession, emerges as the predominant force propelling sonographers away from their calling. This revelation, underscored by the poignant narratives of our colleagues, beckons us to embark on a journey that redefines our understanding of occupational health and demands a holistic approach to safeguarding the well-being of every sonographer.

Professional research informs us that WRMSDs can cause a sonographer to leave the profession and that both WRMSDs and burnout share similar root causes. The intent of our research was to forward the discussion on WRMSDs, by determining if there is an association between the two conditions; an association we did find: burnout was the reason for a sonographer to consider leaving the profession, not a WRMSD. That eye-opening finding reshaped how we viewed our research results. What if the profession, instead of focusing on education and engineering as the way to prevent WRMSDs, looked closer at the psychosocial causes of WRMSDs? 

We were happy to see so many stakeholders, such as radiologists and administrators, express concern for sonographer burnout. While it was gratifying to find so much support from our colleagues, we were saddened by the many sonographers who spoke with us about their own experiences with burnout. During Ultracon, sonographers came up to us and expressed their thoughts of leaving the patient care environment, or that burnout was the reason they had already changed jobs. They voiced concern that pizza parties were viewed as solutions when what they really need is meaningful change to the work and professional culture that prioritizes profits and throughput over people. Sonographers are suffering in silence, and simply want to know someone cares for their well-being.  

How can we move forward knowing that burnout is an issue for the profession and that it is also a factor related to the WRMSD epidemic? Larger research studies are needed on sonographer burnout for us to fully understand not only the scope of the problem but also its root causes.

We encourage other researchers to look at sonographer burnout as a single issue in addition to exploring its relationship to WRMSDs. If we hope to attract young, talented people to pursue a sonography career, we need to show that the career is worth it to them. It is up to us, sonologists, administrators, and sonographers, to work together to ensure that our profession supports the whole sonographer, mind, and body. 

Jennifer Bagley, MPH, RDMS, RVT, FAIUM, FSDMS, is a professor and sonography program director for the College of Allied Health at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She also currently serves on the AIUM Board of Governors.

Interested in reading more about Sonography? Check out these posts from the Scan:

The Place of POCUS in Prevention of Physician Burnout

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Doctors’ jobs, in the hospital or clinic, have been getting more demanding and less rewarding in the last several years. Well-meaning changes including the rise of electronic medical records and attempts to improve how we do our jobs through quality measures have made us sad and tired and supply none of the joy that we can get from a satisfied patient or a diagnostic puzzle cleverly solved. We may find ourselves aging, with multiplying frown lines and receding hairlines, sitting at our computers finishing our documentation, while our families have vacations and parties without us. Although we make enough money, strangely, it doesn’t buy happiness.

When we are tired and sad; we lack the creativity to make job changes. Fear eclipses courage.

IMG_9919Sometimes we do stupid things involving alcohol or indiscretions, or buying something expensive on credit… family members give us “that look.”

We feel inadequate.

We get grumpy and stop doing that extra little bit to connect with the patient or unravel the mysterious illness. The precious little job satisfactions of working well with our team or taking our patients’ point of view become rarer.

We are burning out. There’s that telltale smell of smoke as our soul shrivels and our dreams fry.

What do we need? Probably a vacation, maybe even a stint working in global medicine, to change our perspective. Counseling and confiding in friends can help. If we keep doing the same job, perhaps we need a scribe to take care of the paperwork. Also learning a new skill could make us wake up and love medicine again. Enter point-of-care ultrasound.

I don’t want to trivialize the pain of burnout. It can be devastating, making us depressed, ending marriages, wrecking careers and friendship, collapsing us inward, and sometimes leading to suicide. Somehow we need to jump off of that horrific course and better sooner than later. I got close to burning out early in my career and ever since that time I’ve done everything I can to stay in love with my job. For me, learning to do point-of-care ultrasound enriched my practice and, along with a major career adjustment, kept me from getting all charred and crispy.

Doing point-of-care ultrasound, for a physician who is already skilled in practice but has no ultrasound experience, can be life-altering. As I matured in my practice, some of my physical exam skills improved but others atrophied for lack of use and because I knew that I couldn’t trust them. A fluid wave doesn’t predict ascites. Dullness in the base of the lung doesn’t lead me to suspect a pleural effusion. Splenomegaly, if not massive, is so hard to detect in my super-adequately nourished patients. Learning basic point-of-care ultrasound brought me back to paying good attention to my patients’ bodies. And they were fascinated and appreciated the extra care. I also was able to more quickly solve their medical mysteries and shorten previously prolonged evaluations. Seeing patients got more fun.

Burnout is an awful feeling and is preventable. It happens when we get ourselves into situations that are not sustainable and don’t feed our souls. We physicians have vast options and we need to recognize when we are trying to do a job that is wrong for us. And before we quit the profession entirely, we need to try learning something that makes it fun again. Point-of-care ultrasound, for instance.

 

How do you avoid burnout? Do you have your own experience to share? Comment below, or, AIUM members, continue the conversation on Connect, the AIUM’s online community.

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Janice Boughton MD, FACP, RDMS, is an internist  Moscow, Idaho. She practices hospital medicine and rural primary care as well as teaching point of care ultrasound techniques in the US and Africa. She also writes about healthcare economics in her blog (www.whyisamericanhealthcaresoexpensive.blogspot.com.)

Dr. Boughton graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1986 and completed residency training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the University of Washington. She started doing bedside ultrasound in 2011.