Transforming the Heart of Practice (PDF)

This unique, step-by-step guide offers a comprehensive exploration of burnout and physician wellbeing, a vital issue that steadily has become widely discussed in the professional and mainstream press. More than twenty chapter authors contribute to this multidimensional volume, including physicians, psychologists, researchers, healthcare administrators, chaplains, professional coaches, and counselors. Section one of the book establishes context, provides a brief overview of the phenomenon of physician burnout, establishes its validity, and makes a case for the reason it has emerged as a critical issue in American healthcare. Section two provides a rationale for healthcare institutions (hospitals, physician groups, medical associations) to make a commitment to physician wholeness, while section three then starts the process of delineating a step-by-step curriculum to address the dilemma, providing additional detail and personal experience direct from the frontlines of combatting burnout. Section four focuses on developing and sustaining a healthy professional culture that is aligned with the mission of the organization, and section five addresses the spiritual component of physician wholeness, Section six concludes the book with two personal essays that poignantly express the nature of two common experiences affecting physicians that require uncommon insight, patience, courage. Transforming the Heart of Practice is a major contribution to the literature and will serve as an invaluable resource for anyone concerned with addressing this crisis in American healthcare.