Surgical Resident Burnout: Don't Miss the Forest for the Trees

Abstract

We read with great interest the article by Kratzke and colleagues ¹ Kratzke I.M. Campbell A. Yefimov M.N. et al. Pilot study using neurofeedback as a tool to reduce surgical resident burnout. J Am Coll Surg. 2021; 232 : 74-80 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (2) Google Scholar entitled, “Pilot study using neurofeedback as a tool to reduce surgical resident burnout,” recently published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. We congratulate the authors for their innovative implementation of neurofeedback treatment to improve cognitive workload among surgical residents with burnout. As a surgical trainee and a program director of a surgical training program, respectively, we were struck by the number of residents who were readily available for recruitment into this study. That 15 residents could be identified with burnout symptoms and electroencephalography consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder, from a single institution and in just 3 months no less, is dismaying.