Burnout and psychiatric morbidity in new medical graduates

To the Editor: The recent article by Willcock and colleagues on the high psychological morbidity and level of burnout that interns experience during their first year in hospital highlights an important topic.1

Willcock et al point out that there is an increase in psychiatric morbidity over the intern period in first-year medical graduates. This corroborates the findings of a larger study we conducted among interns during their first year, in which we showed that psychiatric morbidity rises, particularly during the middle of this first year as a doctor, but then decreases by the end of the year.2

The point made by Willcock et al1 is that psychiatric morbidity is not limited to first year graduates — senior doctors are also susceptible to psychological morbidity and burnout.3

Their article highlights the continuing need for workplace reform and support for the medical profession. In addition to reducing working hours, other interventions need to be considered to prepare medical students for their profession, and to reduce the factors which contribute to morbidity (eg, workload, multiple tasking, incessant paging). It should be feasible to test the efficacy of such interventions with the same instruments (such as the General Health Questionnaire) in future generations of interns, and to compare these results with the above studies. Showing that such interventions are effective will provide a strong platform from which to implement wider change in the workplace.