Most young Goa Medical College docs are stressed

Most young Goa Medical College docs are stressed
Preetu Nair, TNN
PANAJI: Young doctors at the Goa Medical College are highly stressed. According to a study, more than 80% doctors in the age group of 23 to 30
suffer from high levels of stress and tension. To help these doctors cope better, GMC has started stress management workshops and will be introducing counseling sessions for them.

The present study was undertaken with the intention of examining the causes and level of stress among doctors. A group of 100 junior and senior residents and consultants working at GMC served as sample for the study conducted by head of pathology department Dr Wiseman Pinto and intern Dr Amar Jain for the Medical Education Cell of GMC. The age of the doctors studied ranged from 23 to 50 years.

"Consultants reported more satisfaction with work and less stress. On the other hand, resident doctors who are just starting their career complained that they are stressed out. About 75.7% said that they were under stress everyday," said Dr Pinto. The study revealed that about 54% had medium stress levels while around 33% complained that they suffered from high levels of stress.

The major cause of stress among doctors are long duty hours, dealing with death, suffering and pain on a daily basis, frequent night duties and calls and overburdened with work. While about 90% said that the major causes for stress were long duty hours (36 hours), no post duty offs, overburdened with work, lack of sleep due to frequent night duties or calls, irritable behaviour of patients or relatives and study tensions, few others said that dealing with high risk patients, lazy junior staff, harassment from seniors, partiality and departmental politics stresses them out. Some also said that they had exam and operation theater tensions.

"Stress levels among young doctors have definitely increased. Though the number of patients have increased over the years, the number of doctors in GMC have remained steady", said Dr. Pinto. On an average, a resident has to handle 50 to 70 patients at GMC in a day, especially in busy departments like surgery, medicine, neurosurgery, ICU, casualty, orthopedics, anesthesia, gynecology and trauma.

While the number of patients has increased over the years, the number of posts have not increased. In 2008, there were 4 lakh OPDs, 52,111 admissions, 16,061 surgeries and 5,665 births in GMC. On the other hand, the number of vacant positions for junior residents are 2, for senior residents 28 and consultants 27.

17 Apr 2009, The Times of India, Goa edition