Abstract
[This is an excerpt.] After the COVID-19 pandemic, the expectations for employees and employers have shifted, and the approach to how and where people work has changed. For most organizations, hybrid work models, including virtual meetings and remote work, are likely here to stay. For surgeons, incorporating telehealth and hybrid virtual communications tools was valuable during this period, as it allowed for interaction with patients, trainees, and administration that otherwise would have been threatened. While the world is slowly recovering from this pandemic, workplaces are adjusting to this new normal. In medicine, particularly surgery, this unique ability to perform virtual work coupled with the numerous academic, clinical, and administrative tasks leads to record-breaking physician burnout and dissatisfaction. Physician burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion, chronic stress, and a decreased sense of satisfaction and personal achievement. Burnout impacts the mental and physical health of physicians and correlates to increased all-cause mortality for patients. Prior studies have demonstrated that medical errors reported by surgeons were strongly related to their self-reported degree of burnout. [To read more, click View Resource.]
