53 - The Burnout Crisis in Canada’s ERs

Dr. Kevin Mailo welcomes Dr. Kerstin de Wit, a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Queen’s University and a very active clinician and researcher practicing both emergency medicine and thrombosis medicine. Dr. Kerstin de Wit was interviewed for an article in the National Post that featured survey data from her latest research into high levels of burnout amongst emergency physicians. Her research was published in June’s edition of the Annals of Emergency Medicine and it reveals the levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization aspects of burnout spiking in emergency medicine personnel. 

Dr. de Wit’s study compared physician burnout levels during 2020, the first year of the pandemic, to levels reported in October 2022. The initial survey revealed that roughly 50% of physicians participating in the survey exhibited high levels of burnout already. In 2022 the levels had increased significantly. Emotional exhaustion, one of the two measured elements of burnout, had increased by an absolute 16% of the cohort, and depersonalization had increased by an absolute 12% of the cohort. Dr. Mailo and Dr. de Wit discuss how alarmingly high the revealed levels of burnout are, the realities and consequences of depersonalization, the quotes from the study that revealed how people feel about the broken state of healthcare in Canada today, and what can be done to lessen the burnout and mend the damaged healthcare and ER departments across Canada. This is a key episode about emergency medicine and the burnout crisis that will take serious intervention to turn around. 

About Dr. Kerstin de Wit, MD:

Kerstin de Wit holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Emergency Venous Thromboembolism and is a Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Queen’s University. She works clinically as an emergency physician and thrombosis physician at Kingston Health Sciences.

Dr de Wit was trained in internal medicine, emergency medicine, and research in the UK. She completed a Thrombosis Fellowship in Ottawa in 2013. Since then, she has worked in both emergency medicine and thrombosis. She leads a research program which focuses on the diagnosis of bleeding and clotting disorders in the emergency department and is funded by CIHR.

Dr de Wit is the Queen’s University Clinician Investigator Program Director and the Research Director for the Department of Emergency Medicine. 

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Resources discussed in this episode:

• “A Longitudinal Survey on Canadian Emergency Physician Burnout” Annals of Emergency Medicine, Volume 83, Issue 6, P576-584, June 2024, by Kerstin de Wit, MBChB, MD; Anna Tran, BSc; Natasha Clayton, CRA, RA; Caroline Gérin-Lajoie, MD; and Mathew Mercuri, PhD, PhD
• “‘I don’t think I’ll last’: How Canada’s emergency room crisis could be killing thousands” by Sharon Kirkey, National Post, July 19, 2024

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Dr. Kerstin de Wit:

• Queen’s University Emergency Medicine Faculty: Dr. Kerstin de Wit, MD
• Kerstin de Wit on X/Twitter

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