Perspectives

Virtue Ethics and the Physician: Aristotle’s Burnout Antidote?

Authors: Carolyn Ann Smith, MD, MPH

Abstract

The physician’s calling adopts the patient as its sole relevance and guiding motivation. Such reverence toward the other as the core dogma of the physician’s vocation is unique among other professions’ foundational ethics and is accomplished many times through the sacrifice of needs of the self or family responsibilities. The trio of physician emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced professional efficacy aptly describes physician burnout.1
Posted in: Mental Health44

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