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Comment & Response
February 2020

Address Physician Burnout by Restoring Control of Health Care to Physicians

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Anesthesiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California
JAMA Intern Med. 2020;180(2):334. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.6007

To the Editor We agree with Dyrbye and colleagues in their recently published Original Investigation1 that burnout is most likely a multifactorial problem. We disagree, however, with the implied conclusion of their study that professional coaching is an effective way to reduce physician burnout. Even with many months of coaching, the authors did not find any improvement in the typical burnout measures of job satisfaction, engagement, depersonalization, or meaning of work. Unfortunately, and in spite of this lack of effectiveness, their study could be interpreted as blaming physician burnout on a personal failure of physicians that can be remedied by coaching.

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