More control, less stress: 5 strategies to reduce radiologist burnout

Patient satisfaction has been at the forefront of providers' minds lately, but physician satisfaction is another important piece of practice optimization. On that score, things have not gone quite so well for radiologists, according to a recent article in the Journal of the American College of Radiology. 

Jay A. Harolds, MD, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, and colleagues wrote that radiologists have become less satisfied with their jobs in recent years, leading to an uptick in burnout within the profession.

“Burnout can have adverse effects on professionalism, academic and clinical performance, patient safety, interpersonal relationships, personnel retention, and patient satisfaction,” the authors wrote. “It may lead to absenteeism from work, problematic alcohol consumption, disruptive behavior, and early retirement.”

What can be done to stop this trend? Harolds et al. provided numerous strategies for reducing radiologist burnout. These are just five of their solutions.

1. Have adequate staffing

Appropriate staffing levels are obviously good for patients, who can receive care more quickly, but it’s also important for the physicians who can be allowed to have a reasonable amount of time off. If your radiology department or imaging center isn’t properly staffed, your employees will likely have less opportunities to step away from the job and enjoy some much-deserved vacation.

In addition, Harolds and colleagues explained that when work gets extremely busy and some after-hours work may be needed, it can have a negative impact on the entire team to ask every radiologist to stay late.

“If an unexpectedly high volume of work occurs occasionally, it may be helpful to offer to pay one or more members of the radiology group to work one or multiple additional hours as a volunteer rather than routinely requiring all the radiologists to work longer,” the authors wrote.

2. Reduce prolonged stress

A high-stress environment makes radiologists much more likely to develop burnout, so it makes sense to take as much prolonged stress out of the equation as possible.

Don’t introduce a lot of huge changes all at once, for instance. And provide new employees with a thorough orientation instead of just throwing them into the proverbial deep end.

Less prolonged stress will make radiologists more eager to come to work in the morning and not as desperate to bolt out the door as soon as possible.

3. Restore a sense of control

If radiology department managers want to increase happiness in the workplace, one of the best things they can do is also one of the most obvious: ask employees what they want to be changed.

“Improvement or resolution of problems identified by staff radiologists, such as poor equipment, poor service, and poor supervision of technologists, will improve physician satisfaction and the sense that their opinions are of value,” the authors wrote.

Harolds and colleagues also cited studies showing that doctors prefer performance incentives based on providing excellent care instead of just being productive.

“Recognizing the accomplishments of individual radiologists, giving radiologists credit for their non-relative value unit contributions to the practice, such as with a balanced scorecard approach, having channels for frequent feedback, having mentoring programs, and giving radiologists greater opportunities for career development are helpful for increasing job satisfaction,” the authors wrote.

4. Improve the efficiency of the radiologist

Radiologists will be happier, and less likely to feel burned out, if they are able to spend more of their time reading images and less of their time on activities such as phone calls and filling out paperwork.

Are radiologists at your practice or department responsible for a lot of administrative work? Maybe that can be handled by someone else on the staff, so radiologists can remain focused on the task at hand.

5. Reduce isolation of radiologists

Nobody likes to feel isolated and alone for too long, including radiologists.

“Reducing the isolation of diagnostic radiologists is a way to help prevent burnout, such as by having large reading rooms with many radiologists rather than individual reading rooms,” the authors wrote. “Another strategy is to place diagnostic radiologists in reading rooms outside the radiology department, such as in the emergency department and in the offices of referring physicians, so they can interact with others.”

The full list of suggestions from Harolds and the other authors can be found in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.