COVID-19
Scholarly Sessions
Public Health
Mental Health
Epidemiology & Health Services Pathway
Education Pathway
Diversity and Inclusion
Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics
Core Curriculum for Fellows
Community Pediatrics
Clinical Bioethics
Children with Chronic Conditions
Quality Improvement/Patient Safety
Health Services Research
Health Equity/Social Determinants of Health
General Pediatrics
Cross-Disciplinary Pathway
Clinical Research Pathway
Child Abuse & Neglect
Career Development Pathway
Advocacy Pathway
Academic and Research Skills
Eliana Perrin, MD MPH
Professor of Pediatrics and Director, Duke Center for Childhood Obesity Research
Department of Pediatrics
Duke University, North Carolina, United States
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a kind of “double whammy” (Saleh, 2020) for pediatricians, of acute problems on top of longstanding chronic stress. Prior to the pandemic, nearly 1 in 2 general pediatricians was already burned out (Shanafelt et al., 2015). Now, pediatricians are having to balance old challenges with new ones, such as widespread office closures and reduced volume, with some clinics facing drops in patient visits by 60% or more (Gold, 2020). They are also contending with constantly changing work protocols, increased isolation and ostracization from colleagues, peers, and friends, role-juggling and competing work-family demands. Furthermore, earlier shortages of PPE, combined with societal demands for heroism have caused some physicians to feel more like martyrs than heroes, requiring them to make difficult decisions about their safety, and that of loved ones. Academic researchers have also contended with a chaning landscape of what studies are allowed to continue vs. be deferred and many academic pediatricians have pivoted their work to answer key questions of the day rather than the ones they worked so hard to write grants to answer. This panel will explore these and other ways that COVID-19 is affecting pediatrician clinician attendings, residents, and researchers' health and wellbeing during the global pandemic. It will combine a range of perspectives from clinician educators, to private practice, to academic pediatrics, to sociology to consider how practicing pediatricians are experiencing the crisis—and what might be done to help improve that experience.
Works cited:
Gold, J. (2020). Pediatric Practices Struggle To Adapt And Survive Amid COVID-19. Retrieved from https://khn.org/news/pediatric-practices-struggle-to-adapt-and-survive-amid-covid-19/
Saleh, M. (2020). A Double Whammy: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Burnout in Medical Professionals. Retrieved from https://leanforward.hms.harvard.edu/2020/04/09/a-double-whammy-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-burnout-in-medical-professionals/
Shanafelt, T. D., Hasan, O., Dyrbye, L. N., Sinsky, C., Satele, D., Sloan, J., & West, C. P. (2015). Changes in Burnout and Satisfaction With Work-Life Balance in Physicians and the General US Working Population Between 2011 and 2014. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 90(12), 1600-1613. doi:10.1016/j.mayocp.2015.08.023
Presenter: Tania M. Jenkins, PhD – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Presenter: Jennifer DeCoste-Lopez, MD – Duke University School of Medicine
Presenter: Brian Eichner, MD – Duke University School of Medicine
Presenter: Betty Staples, MD – Duke University Medical Center
Presenter: Elizabeth Erickson, MD – Duke University School of Medicine
Presenter: Eliana M. Perrin, MD MPH – Duke University
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