Abstract
BACKGROUND: Promoting residents' wellbeing and decreasing burnout is a focus of Graduate Medical Education (GME). A supportive clinical learning environment is required to optimize residents' wellness and learning. OBJECTIVE: To determine if longitudinal assessments of burnout and learning environment as perceived by residents combined with applying continuous quality Model for Improvement and serial Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles to test interventions would improve residents' burnout. METHODS: From November 2017 to January 2020, 271 GME residents in internal medicine, general surgery, psychiatry, emergency medicine, family medicine and obstetrics and gynecology, were assessed over five cycles by Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), and by clinical learning environment factors (which included personal/social relationships, self-defined burnout, program burnout support, program back-up support, clinical supervision by faculty, and sleep difficulties). The results of the MBI and clinical learning environment factors were observed and analyzed to determine and develop indicated Institutional and individual program interventions using a Plan, Do, Study, Act process with each of the five cycles. RESULTS: The response rate was 78.34%. MBI parameters for all GME residents improved over time but were not statistically significant. Residents' positive perception of the clinical supervision by faculty was significantly and independently associated with improved MBI scores, while residents' self-defined burnout; and impaired personal relations perceptions were independently significantly associated with adverse MBI scores on liner regression. For all GME, significant improvements improved over time in residents' perception of impaired personal relationships (p?
