A doctor rolled his eyes at me. When doctors are burnt out, patients pay the price

I can count on one hand the number of times in my life that I’ve been sick or injured enough to visit an A&E. Two of those visits happened in the last two weeks. As a patient, the impact the experiences had on me could not be more different.

But it also reaffirmed my belief that to truly shift toward patient centric care, we need to address healthcare worker #burnout .

I arrived in the A&E at 1am with symptoms that Dr. Google told me to “see a doctor immediately” for. I was scared.

While I was being hooked up to machines, the doctor who attended to me (young, male, glasses) triaged, questions rolling off his mental checklist.

He looked me in the eye, and called me by my name.

“On a scale of 1-10 how would you describe the pain?”

“Have you fallen recently?”

He didn’t interrupt as I stuttered responses.

I was discharged 8 hours later, not knowing what was wrong but I had a plan and felt like I'd made the right call to validate that I was not, in fact, dying.

About a week later I went to the A&E again with similar symptoms (my specialist appointment was still a week away).

I sat on a bed facing a different doctor (young, male, glasses), who was turned toward his computer screen and didn’t look up.

I stared at his side profile while answering his questions.

“What is your pain level on a scale from 1-10?”

“Does it get worse when you stand?”

I stumbled on the last one and thought about my answer for about 3 seconds…

that's when I saw him roll his eyes.

I felt like an idiot for coming back to the A&E. And then I got mad.

For a second I wanted to ask him if he was having a bad day or if he hated his job.

But I didn’t.

What else had I seen that first night at the A&E? Nurses shouted at by patients. Doctors asking patients questions and being told to “f themselves”. Even in (tame) Singapore, police officers are regulars in the A&E.

But what else didn’t I see?

🚩 According to several recent studies, at least 50% of healthcare workers are burnt out, leading to massive depersonalisation and loss of empathy.

💡 Burnt out healthcare workers CANNOT deliver compassionate, patient centric care.

How little does it take to start making patients feel seen and heard, and become more engaged? It can start with eye contact, with names. With waiting a few seconds for a response.

But not without addressing the burnout preventing frontline healthcare workers from delivering the #compassionatecare they are capable of.

We can only improve #patientexperience with solutions that improve healthcare workers experience. Let's start.