Abstract
[This is an excerpt.] Facing high rates of burnout and loneliness, some doctors are calling for the return of physician lounges. Once a fixture of hospitals, dedicated spaces for health workers to rest and socialize went out of style in recent decades as a result of cost-cutting measures and the rise of patient-centred design. According to hospital designers interviewed for a 2012 paper, “staff should spend less time talking amongst themselves and more time talking to patients.” Some even described staff collegiality as a threat to hospital performance. Studies have since shown that social isolation negatively affects health workers’ well-being, with medicine ranking among the loneliest professions. “When the most meaningful encounters you have with your colleagues on any given workday happen in the elevator, for example, then that’s a shame,” says Rose Zacharias, Ontario Medical Association (OMA) president. Virtual care has compounded this sense of isolation — not only are physicians seeing less of their colleagues, but they’re seeing less of their patients, too. [To read more, click View Resource.]
