ABSTRACT
Background: Natural disasters take a heavy toll not only on their victims, but also on physicians who suffer vicarious trauma and burnout. New trainees in Houston, from entering PGY1 residents to entering fellows, underwent even more upheaval and stress during Hurricane Harvey. Many responded to calls for volunteer help. Objective: To investigate the impact of Hurricane Harvey on new trainees at our institution, and correlate volunteerism with measures of burnout and resilience. Methodology: Thirty three new trainees out of 90 (43% of population) from all specialties in our institution voluntarily responded to an online survey on the impact of Hurricane Harvey on their lives, whether or not they volunteered and in what form, and answered questions drawing from the abbreviated Maslach burnout survey and Resiliency Quiz. Statistical analyses were conducted using GraphPad Prism and Excel data analysis. Results: The top areas impacted were emotional health (32%), eating habits (29%), family (25%) and finances (25%). The main voluntary activities were covering for colleagues who could not make it to hospital (50%), donating money and supplies (36%), and cleaning and rebuilding (36%). Volunteering was associated with feelings of appreciation (76%), happiness (62%), thankfulness (57%), purposefulness (43%) and pride (33%). Fewer volunteers scored lowly in personal achievement as compared to non-volunteers (10 vs. 38%, p = 0.05). Significance: Hurricane Harvey affected health, finances and family of new trainees, more than half of whom volunteered to help. Volunteers had a greater sense of personal achievement as compared to non-volunteers. This may be due to having more volunteers among less burnt-out trainees or because volunteering reduced burnout and stress responses/trauma. These results suggest that volunteer opportunities should be made available in programs targeting resident burnout.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The Methodist Hospital monitors resident duty hours using self-report for external rotations and an electronic time clock system for internal rotations where residents use their identification badges to "swipe in and out." This study was conducted to compare the accuracy of self-reports against the electronic system. METHODS: This was a prospective observational study. For 1 month, surgical residents in an academic training program self-reported their duty hours and used the electronic system. The primary outcome measure was the accuracy of self-reported duty hours. RESULTS: Twenty two surgical residents accounted for 450 individual duty-hour periods. Sixty-four percent of the residents were men, and the distribution by postgraduate year (PGY) was PGY1 27%, PGY2 27%, PGY3 14%, PGY4 14%, and PGY5 18%. The number of missing duty-hour period reports was significantly greater for self-reports (44/450) than for the electronic system (18/450), p < 0.001. There were no statistically significant differences between either reporting method in regard to total number of duty-hour violations and individual duty-hour violations. CONCLUSION: Self-report was as accurate as the electronic system in determining the occurrence of duty-hour violations. Because residents may be able to manipulate reporting in both systems, the possibility of inaccuracies exists.