Dr. Harris on understanding the link between call and burnout in urology

In this video, Andrew M. Harris, MD, highlights remaining questions based on the study, “Exploring the Demands of Urology: On-Call Compensation, Frequency, and Variability,” which found that requirements and compensation for call widely varied across demographics and other variables. Harris is the chief of urology at the Lexington VA Health System, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky, and the chair of the Workforce Task Force and a member of the Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Committee for the American Urological Association.

Video Transcript:

What are some of the implications of findings from this study?

Concerning implications of these findings, there are a couple of different ones. One is, how is call affecting people in those regions? It may be really nice to go back and take a look at some of our work on burnout and see if there's some associations here where we're getting less money for call, and does that affect burnout at all? I think that would be interesting to take a look at some of these variables. Then also for those urologists looking at where they want to practice and what practice types may involve call, variability, or pay for call, or call frequency, how does this help those individuals better negotiate their contracts, better be prepared for reading their contracts, to know, is this normal? Is it not normal for the area of the country that we're in, for the salary we're making, for the hours we're going to work, the subspecialty we're going to work, or gender? So, really helping to arm our work force to be prepared to have those negotiations and discussions for prospective employers.

What are some potential future directions for research based on these findings?

I think trying to better understand how call affects the people who are doing the call. Many of us feel privileged to take care of our patients, and that's why we went into the health care profession. However, at some point, that amount of call and how it affects work/life balance becomes difficult. The question is, when is that point? There are some studies that suggest that if you get compensated to take call, it may not affect your work/life balance as much; I don't know how exactly that works, but a hypothesis might be that you feel like your time is more valued if you're compensated to take the calls. Or if you take less call, there may be associations with better work/life balance. I think in our urological population and our work force, we have to understand that a little bit better. I think future questions on how this call affects people may help us better understand and combat burnout in the future.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.