UCC professor launches support service for doctors suffering from exhaustion and burnout
Having worked as a consultant in critical care and anaesthesiology for many years, Prof Dorothy Breen has seen first-hand the distress caused by burnout within the medical profession. Keen to do something about it, she began investigating the problem and quickly discovered that only a small proportion of doctors ever seek outside support to ease their job-related pressures.
This inspired her to set up
forDoctors.ie
, a coaching and mentoring service provided by doctors for doctors.
'An Irish Medical Organisation survey conducted in 2021 shows that only 7 per cent of Irish doctors reach out for support, yet over 60 per cent report feelings of burnout and exhaustion,' Breen says.
'What is really key here is the importance of peer-led solutions and as of now there is no coaching services for doctors by doctors. There are corporate solutions available, but they are not considered by medical practitioners to meet their specific needs.
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'ForDoctors addresses this need through a coaching service that is led and delivered by doctors with appropriate qualifications. Doctors are uniquely placed to support each other with levels of empathy and a deep understanding that can only be appreciated from a place of lived experience.'
Practitioners can avail of the service either in person or online and it is aimed at clinicians at all stages in their careers, from doctors in training to GPs and hospital consultants. The focus will be on the domestic market initially, with a service for Irish doctors based abroad to follow.
'The aim is to provide a confidential, proactive, guided process for doctors to achieve a more fulfilling career, a better work-life balance and enhanced performance. Medicine will only be transformed when doctors are assisted to thrive in all aspects of their lives,' Breen says.
'Exhaustion and burnout are not only an issue for doctors. They are also an issue for patient safety,' adds Breen, a trained coach and mentor who lectures in leadership, quality improvement and patient safety at the RCSI and in UCC, where she is a clinical professor.
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Almost quarter of nurses, midwives saw doctor over work stress, INMO survey finds
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'I have over 30 years of clinical experience in Ireland and Australia as a doctor, researcher and educator and have always been involved in quality improvement and clinical leadership both in practice and academia. This led me to avail of formal coaching throughout my career and I found it to be enormously beneficial in both my personal and professional life.'
What can often get overlooked, Breen notes, is that many clinicians are juggling multifaceted roles as their workload frequently includes challenging non-medical tasks such as practice management and team leadership on top of looking after their patients.
ForDoctors was set up in mid-2024 on a budget of about €20,000, and Breen has recently participated in the Ignite incubation programme for start-ups based at UCC.
'Having been an academic and clinician all my life I needed to develop the entrepreneurial skills required to set up a business and Ignite was invaluable in helping me to do this,' she says. 'The programme provided access to guidance and training from industry experts and also a safe environment for me to test and validate my idea and business proposition.'
ForDoctors will operate with a panel of coaches/mentors and Breen says that while coaching has long been part of the business world, medicine has been slow to follow.
'There is essentially no model for coaching in medicine, so somebody had to go first. Doctors are high achievers by nature and want to give of their best. However, they are currently facing enormous pressures in their lives with unprecedented demands on their time and services.
'Through coaching, doctors can recalibrate and take concrete steps towards their desired life and career goals no matter what system they work in,' Breen says.
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