It’s common for people working in medicine to feel like their efforts don’t lead to much and that they are just a cog in the machine. Clinicians can have frequent and often stressful interpersonal interactions where empathy and emotional control are important. Loss of joy in an engagement with work can lead to decreased effectiveness, impaired health, and lower job satisfaction. A relationship between engagement and job satisfaction is established for several types of physicians but is less studied among surgeons who treat musculoskeletal conditions. 

Among surgeons treating musculoskeletal conditions, we studied factors associated with lower job satisfaction. Greater symptoms of burnout were the only factor independently associated with lower job satisfaction, and having children was the only factor independently associated with fewer symptoms of burnout (1). Among an active research group of largely academic surgeons treating musculoskeletal conditions, most are satisfied with their job. Efforts to limit burnout and job satisfaction by optimizing engagement in and deriving meaning from the work are effective in other settings and merit attention among surgeons.

There is evidence that feedback from 360-degree feedback surveys-combined with coaching-can improve physician team performance and patient experience. The Physicians Universal Leadership-Teamwork Skills Education (PULSE) Quality 360 is one such survey tool used to assess work colleagues’ and coworkers’ perceptions of a physician’s leadership, teamwork, and clinical practice style. The Clinician & Group-Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and System (CG-CAHPS), developed by the US Department of Health and Human Services to serve as the benchmark for quality health care, is a survey tool for patients to provide feedback that is based on their recent experiences with staff and clinicians. The Quality PULSE 360 insight impact score correlated with patient satisfaction, patient recommendation, patient rating of surgeon respect, and patient impression of clarity of the physician explanation (2). Additionally, leadership-teamwork index also correlated with patient rating of surgeon respect and patient impression of clarity of the surgeon’s explanation. We felt this was evidence that that feedback from work team members may provide helpful information about patient experience of physician behavior. Data from 360 feedback surveys can be easier to collect and relatively affordable. 

  References

1. van Wulfften Palthe OD, Neuhaus V, Janssen SJ, Guitton TG, Ring D; Science of Variation Group. Among Musculoskeletal Surgeons, Job Dissatisfaction Is Associated With Burnout. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2016 Apr 25. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 27113597.

2. Gregory PJ, Ring D, Rubash H, Harmon L. Use of 360° Feedback to Develop Physician Leaders in Orthopaedic Surgery. J Surg Orthop Adv. 2018 Summer;27(2):85-91. PubMed PMID: 30084813.