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It is well known that nurses and other oncology care clinicians face increasingly difficult workplace challenges and experience high levels of stress and burnout. There are, however, ways to improve working conditions and promote personal well-being, said authors of a review in the ASCO Educational Book.
"Clinicians often enter oncology with a strong sense of passion rooted in curiosity, service, and early formative experiences. Over time, however, this passion is tested by escalating clinical complexity, administrative burden, workforce shortages, and competing personal and organizational demands," wrote Sabe Sabesan, PhD, of the Townsville Cancer Centre in Queensland, Australia, and colleagues.
The cancer care workforce is heading toward an unprecedented crisis, they warned. Although therapeutic advances are improving outcomes, they also require more time, coordination, and specialized expertise, and the workforce is not expanding fast enough to meet these demands.
The article focuses on the well-being of oncology clinicians. "It outlines the current state of the oncology workforce ... and the present-day factors driving burnout in the profession. The chapter subsequently presents value-based individual and organizational interventions that can be readily implemented to foster and maintain the sense of purpose and protect, enhance, and preserve the well-being of the oncology workforce," the team explained.
