Physician Burnout and Ethics Committees.

This article provides a brief background of key issues in physician burnout, a significant problem in the healthcare industry. The extent and severity of burnout are not well understood; and those seeking help are often stigmatized. A number of different approaches to alleviating burnout have been suggested, but the problem lacks any single or simple solution. We posit that an ethics committee may be well positioned to help address this issue because of its unique position within an institution. An ethics committee serves the entire hospital staff regardless of department. As such it may be able to identify common elements in the development of burnout, and can serve as a conduit to administration in identifying these. An ethics committee can obtain information about the extent of burnout by conducting surveys to assess the extent and severity of burnout in aninstitution, and serve as a central resource to help address and alleviate it. Finally, an ethics committee may be able to act as an intermediary between practitioners and the administration, in advising the administration of the extent of the problem and offer suggestions for alleviating it.

The Magnitude of the Spatial Disorientation Problem in Transport Airplanes.

INTRODUCTION: Loss-of-control (LOC) is the major cause of transport airplane mishaps. There have been many published reports and papers examining these accidents. While these studies did mention spatial disorientation (SD) as a cause or a factor, none of them analyzed it further. The present study uses transport and commuter airplane mishap data for a recent 35-yr period and examines the results of those mishaps involving spatial disorientation.METHOD: We identified LOC and SD accidents from five national aviation accident organizations and two independent groups. Only "normal" operations (air carrier, noncommercial transportation, ferry flights, and training) were considered. We reviewed transport and commuter airplane accidents using the published reports and identified 94 involving SD.RESULTS: We found the distribution of SD mishaps differs from LOC mishaps. During initial climb, there were relatively fewer SD mishaps (16%) than LOC mishaps (31%). During enroute climb SD has relatively more mishaps (18%) than LOC (11%). During go-around or missed approach phases, there were relatively more SD mishaps (21%) than LOC mishaps (4%). Perhaps the most significant observation was an increasing number of SD mishaps during the period reviewed.DISCUSSION: There are several possible reasons for the increasing numbers of SD mishaps over the study period from 1981 to 2016. Somatogravic illusion during go-around or missed approach accounts for only some of this increase. There is insufficient data to determine the reason for the remaining increase.Newman RL, Rupert AH. The magnitude of the spatial disorientation problem in transport airplanes. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2020; 91(2):65-70.