Opinion: Giving doctors the ‘capability’ they need to care for patients can fight burnout
Data-backed changes can free up doctors to once again experience the joy of medicine. We will all be better off for that.
When I was 21, I drove an ambulance in New Orleans. The city had the highest rate of gun violence in the country at the time, which kept me busy. But I spent way too many hours picking up non-emergency patients who treated my ambulance as a taxi ride to the ER. It got to the point where my fellow drivers and I called our vehicles the “cab-u-lance.” Each day I recorded in a notebook the runs in which my transport mattered. I was happy, of course, to do my part to help whoever needed it, but to stay engaged and feel fulfilled I needed to know that I had helped save a life or made a difference.
Doctors feel this need to matter acutely and profoundly. It’s their raison d’être, — is an epidemic?
