192 - Participation in Scholarly Learning Community Protects Against Clinician Burnout

Publication Number: 192.5968

Leah Marie Seften, The Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME, United States; Tara Palnitkar, The Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME, United States; Laura J. Faherty, Maine Medical Center/RAND, Cape Elizabeth, ME, United States; Leah Mallory, Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital, Portland, ME, United States; Alexa K. Craig, The Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center, Scarborough, ME, United States; Mary C. Ottolini, The Barbara Bush Children's Hospital at Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME, United States; Michael Kohut, Tufts University School of Medicine, Tega Cay, SC, United States

Background: Clinician engagement in academic scholarly work is associated with decreased burnout and higher career satisfaction. In 2019, we developed a learning community, The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital Scholarship Academy (BBCH SA), to support pediatric clinicians with their scholarly work through mentorship, resource support, and learning opportunities. The BBCH SA mission is to create a collaborative interprofessional culture that provides members with resources, infrastructure and tailored support to advance their scholarly goals.

Objective: We aimed to study BBCH SA members’ perceptions of the relationship between their experience in the Academy and burnout to understand how to mitigate burnout and enhance the resilience of pediatricians and other pediatric clinicians.

Design/Methods: We invited BBCH SA members to participate in qualitative semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted virtually in January-May of 2024, recorded, and professionally transcribed. We used the framework method to compare themes relevant to our aims across all participants

Results: Our sample had representation from 2 nurse practitioners and 11 physicians. Results demonstrated that clinicians experienced burnout due to monotony of clinical tasks, inability to address systemic familial and societal concerns, healthcare and insurance bureaucracy and limited time (See excerpts of quotations in Table 1). Participants shared that although scholarly work added time constraints/expectations, this work provided them with a sense of meaning, autonomy, and self-efficacy that increased job satisfaction and outlook. They considered engagement in the BBCH SA to be protective against experiencing burnout due to the supportive community, research infrastructure, and non-punitive expectations.

Conclusion(s): This study underscored the impact that participation in scholarly work has on an individual’s experience of burnout. The study found that the type of scholarly work and environment in which it is conducted has the potential to either improve or exacerbate burnout. Results suggest that creating a learning community with an emphasis on collaboration and autonomy and providing members with research infrastructure to support their scholarly work, may reduce burnout in clinician-investigators.

Table 1. Qualitative Themes with Representative Quotations from Preliminary Thematic Analysis