Medical students burn out due to organisational flaws

Hyderabad: Organisational flaws and coping with medical education with limited faculty are the factors responsible for the burnout of medical students stated junior doctors in Telangana. Burnout among medical students is found to be high and it is stated that it costs the health care system in terms of patient care, negligence and also high levels of anxiety to doctors. The burnout rate in physicians is as high as 45.2 per cent according to a recent study published in JAMA.   

Dr P Vijendra, senior resident explained, “The burnout is due to faulty administrative scheduling and also on the part of the students who are found to run between classes in the college and classes in coaching centres. This is leading to burnout problems in medical students.”

The increase in seats in medical colleges in the state without proper increase in infrastructure and also faculty has led to stress on teachers and also the students who are not able to grasp the teaching. A junior doctor on condition of anonymity explained, “There are 250 students in one class and there is only one teacher. It becomes difficult to understand. There are times when the accent of the teacher makes it difficult to understand what is being taught. For this reason, we have to now rely on videos of teachers on the internet and go for coaching classes. There is a large amount of time that has to be spent in self-learning as the syllabus is not repeated again as a vast portion has to be completed.”

The young medical students have to also spend a considerable time in bedside practice. But many of them are found to skip it as they are preparing for post-graduate courses and do not want have time for learning at the bedside. This is adding to their pressure where the learning is not completed.

Dr M Imran, a senior postgraduate explained, “The system has become competitive but in doing so they are killing the basic practice. Those who skip this practice have further difficulty in the advanced practice of specialities.”

The study has found that doctors training in urology, neurology, emergency medicine, gynaecology and general surgery are having higher burnout syndrome than others. The anxiety levels were also found to be high.

Medical students were found to suffer from emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and also feeling low on personal accomplishments when comparing to their other peers in other professions.

There have been suggestions to improve the infrastructure, increase the faculty and stress on the basic bedside practice which will go a long way in understanding the disease pattern.