Communication and Burnout Prevention

Medical burnout is a growing problem that affects the entire health team and is fundamentally correlated with stress, bureaucratic burden, the judicialization of medicine, patient demands, moral fatigue, and lack of care toward caregivers. One of the preventable aspects of burnout is the health team’s training, specifically communication training. Everything can be said, but not everything can be said the same way. Knowing how to communicate in the appropriate way does not transform bad news into good news, but it does reduce the guilt that torments those who gave the news in an inappropriate manner. In the same vein, not everything should be said. The art of communicating the truth also lies in mastering the art of remaining silent. You should not say things that are superfluous or that the patient does not want to know. The doctor or boss is not always the best person to give news, sometimes another member of the team is in a better position to do so, but the doctor and the boss must always be in a position to give bad news. These are some of the tips that we will develop in this chapter, aimed at preventing burnout.