Campaign against Resident Burnout

My name is Annie.
Or maybe you met me as Dr. Laurri.
I'm a Resident Physician at UB Internal Medicine. 

Resident Physicians in my program are there for you at ECMC, Buffalo General, the VA, and Roswell Park. We watch over the hospitals at night. We run every 'code blue' there. We see patients on the floors, in the emergency rooms, in our clinics. More importantly, we love what we do and the patients we serve. These experiences and these relationships mold us into greater physicians - from a quiet holding of hands to the harrowing shock of a heart back to life.

Please excuse my tendency to ramble.

There is a sickness growing in our country. This epidemic is physician burnout and it is happening now - here in Buffalo - and all over the world.

Burnout, in essence, is both physical and emotional exhaustion, depersonlization, and a loss of purpose. It can eventually lead to depression, cynicism, and in extreme cases suicide.  The sickness has many causes: long hours, stressful situations, lack of resources for our own physical and mental health, isolation... the list goes on. Studies continue to show that this epidemic is only growing. This impacts our ability to care for ourselves but also to care for our patients.

I myself was training at Cornell when an intern from my program took his own life, soon after another resident from across the city at Columbia did the same. 

But there is a treatment!

In our own small program we have built a "WELLNESS INITIATIVE", a campaign to fight burnout and vaccinate ourselves against it by building a new culture of resilience. My friends and neighbors, this campaign cannot be fought by ourselves alone - I ask you to lend us aid in any way that you can to support this fight. 

Our Wellness Initiative focuses on improving access to healthcare for physicians, improving work life balance, peer mentoring, crisis services, team building events, and volunteer work to promote professional lives.

I ask you as my friends, neighbors, family, patients, to help us now in our time of need. Any amount you can spare will go directly into an account for services towards resident burnout only. The money will be used to help train our residents to recognize burnout and equip them to fight it. 

Buffalo -- you are the city of good neighbors! Let's unite in the fight to improve healthcare!

Thank you for your time and for your consideration,


Annie
(That short little Doctor you thought was a highschool volunteer at 3AM in the ER)