Stress/Depression in Medical Students/Residents?

[EJK014]

I am currently a 4th-year pre-med college student about to graduate soon. As I'm finishing my undergraduate degree and thinking about medical school, I starting thinking more about an ideal future career in medicine. I'm not talking about the stress of taking classes & the cost of med school, but rather how being a resident/doctor will affect my mental health. This got me thinking - what exactly causes medical residents/doctors to be so stressed out or depressed?

As an assignment, I had gathered & analyzed multiple research papers to analyze the correlation between contributing factors toward "burnout" in medical residents (aka stress and depression) and levels of cognitive thinking/moral reasoning. The results showed a significant relationship between medical residents feeling loss of personal satisfaction & positive emotions with decreased cognitive thinking skills. Overall, the main contributing factor for stress was long work hours, followed by high patient workload.

I wanted to know, what are your thoughts on this? I know there's a lot of medical professions out there, each with its own specific types of job responsibilities & levels of demand for patient care, but in general, what would you say stresses residents/doctors out the most when working in a hospital setting?

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[jarednogeek]

I think some of it stems from pursuing a career for the wrong reasons. If you become a physician out of your own ambition you can overcome a lot of obstacles. However, if you were pushed by family, prestige, etc. it becomes depressing. Stress is a mind state and an outlook on life and the situations it presents.
A physician faces a lot of crap, endless paperwork, dealing with crazy bureaucracies of hospitals and insurance companies, decreasing pay and increasing debt. You must enter the field with a realistic view of what it holds. Be prepared for the crappy parts before you enter so that you're not surprised. For me, being able to use science to heal patients is the only way I see myself having a fulfilling career. I'm choosing this career for myself.

 

[acutepox]

MS3, can't speak for residents. But I'm on rotations and as an observer, very little of it has to do with coming in for the wrong reasons. I'm watching my interns break down because they're getting a trillion pages about an order that won't go thru the f**ng EMR, or because there's no shelter beds for a patient and they have to discharge to the street. I think you answered your own question. Burnout's a real problem, not to mention it starts in medical school with the constant performance. Don't get me wrong, the highs are great and taking care of people can be so rewarding. But this **** is hard. At least for me so far.