Work stress
Job stress has received extensive theoretical and research atten- tion. Work stress occurs when a person appraises external demands
from work as taxing or exceeding his or her resources (Lazarus, 1999). Once employees perceive any work situation as presenting demands that threaten to exceed their capabilities and resources for meeting them – or as being too costly if not met – they are expected to assess the situation as stressful. These perceptions are, of course, very subjective; stress is in “the eye of the beholder”.
Physicians, specifically, deal with numerous and varied stress- ors: long work hours, unreasonable work conditions, and work environment (many patients and too little time for each patient), sleep disorders because of night shifts, loss of autonomy (thephysician is forced to cope with the economic, social, and legal implications of his/her decisions; patients are better informed due to exposure to the internet), lack of balance between work and personal life, isolation , relatively low pay in comparison to what is expected in return for the long years of training and long work hours, low promotion options, profes- sional responsibility, dealing with illness and death on a daily basis, a sense of failure fear of lawsuits for medical malpractice, and more It is, therefore, not surprising that physicians experience work stress.