Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Training and the practice of emergency medicine are stressful endeavours, placing emergency medicine physicians at risk of burnout. Burnout syndrome is associated with negative outcomes for patients, institutions and the physician. The aim of this review is to summarise the available literature on burnout among emergency medicine physicians and provide recommendations for future work in this field. ⋯ Both work-related (hours of work, years of practice, professional development activities, non-clinical duties etc.) and non-work-related factors (age, sex, lifestyle factors etc.) are associated with burnout. Despite the heavy burnout rates among emergency medicine physicians, little work has been performed in this field. Factors responsible for burnout among various emergency medicine populations should be determined, and appropriate interventions designed to reduce burnout.
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Emerg Med Australas · Dec 2013
ReviewReview article: Evacuating hospitals in Australia: What lessons can we learn from the world literature?
The creation of hospitals safe from disaster is an area of increasing public policy. The vulnerability of hospitals to damage and destruction during an event has profound implications for the health of a community. Although hospital evacuations do occur in Australia, their prevalence is unknown and what leads to a successful evacuation is poorly understood. ⋯ Most critically, all hospitals must have a practised, detailed hospital evacuation plan existing before an impending threat. There are also areas for improvement in the areas of assessing the risk to the facility, communications, leadership, logistics, staffing and planning. These lessons should be included into comprehensive, detailed evacuation plans for all Australian hospitals, supported by a national framework that standardises planning and response.