| Physician burnout appears to begin in medical training and has its highest prevalence in residency. Despite heightened interest in resident burnout research, there is a relative paucity of qualitative studies. During the fall of 2017, we interviewed 19 internal medicine residents at a single academic medical center. Participants were asked to describe their experiences with burnout and their ideas about burnout prevention in semi-structured, thirty minute interviews. Using qualitative methods, interview data was coded and analyzed. The results of this analysis were used to assemble a comprehensive description of resident burnout, consisting of five categories: (i) resident experiences with burnout, (ii) factors that mitigate burnout, (iii) positive residency experiences, (iv) factors with variable effects, and (v) resident perspectives on burnout interventions. Our findings provide a rich description of burnout in residency training and will be useful in better understanding issues unique to resident burnout and in developing future burnout interventions at the individual and organizational level. |
