Quality and Safety in Healthcare, Part XLVII Resilience and Burnout

The ability to come back from challenges such as the many factors predisposing to burnout is resilience. Individual strategies to prevent and recover from burnout can be learned and practiced. This includes mindfulness, meditation, yoga, various stress reduction techniques, coaching, counseling, mentoring, discussions in small groups, workshops, and better work life balance. Other approaches include building a support network, taking care of one's personal health, pursuing narrative medicine, engaging in reflection, emphasizing positive psychology approaches including learned optimism, encouraging a growth mindset, and volunteering. This article will focus on the topic of resilience as it is related to burnout, and subsequent articles will discuss some of the strategies for prevention and recovery in detail.