Advice for doctors working or planning to work in intensive care: summation from a qualitative study

Healthcare personnel who work for prolonged periods in highly stressful environments are susceptible to the effects of these stressors and the cumulative nature of their exposure. The term 'burnout' has been coined to describe a constellation of symptoms related to work, organisational and personal issues occurring in individuals with no prior history [1]. Burnout has been described as particularly prevalent in the critical care setting [2-4]; it affects not only the health and wellbeing of those individuals experiencing the deleterious consequences, but also the quality of the care they provide [1]. There is significant literature that supports the worthiness of mentorship [5-7] throughout medical training. Following on from our paper exploring the behavioural responses of intensivists to stressors encountered working in the intensive care environment [8], the aim of this study was to elicit the advice senior intensivists might offer others on dealing with the stresses of a career in intensive care.