How Becoming a Hospitalist Saved One Doctor from Burnout

Sometimes you have to do something radical to find your happy place.

This is how one doctor saved himself from burnout...

When 'hospitalist' was just coming into the lexicon, Rob Olson, MD made the leap to become one.

He's never looked back.

For 27 years, Olson had been living the constant stress of being an OBGYN solo practitioner, pulled between family and work; and between the clinic and hospital.

“You’re feeling guilty that you’re not with your family or you’re feeling guilty that you’re not with your patient. It’s a no win situation,” says the 73-year-old now.

At work, he was divided further between his clinic and the hospital — between OB and GYN. 

“You’re in your office and you really want to be there in labor and maybe you should be, but then you’re trying to knock off the last three clinic patients of the day and you think, ‘Ooh, am I missing something?’ It worried me.”

Indeed, malpractice is a constant bedfellow of OBGYNs. “It’s something you think about every day,” says Olson, from his home in Bellingham, Wash. 

He didn’t realize that being a hospitalist could help him integrate the areas that were creating so much stress -- until he heard someone at a conference put “OBGYN” and “hospitalist” together. 

One day in 2005, he heard someone at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) annual meeting say the words, “OBGYN Hospitalist.” 

“I thought, ‘That’s exactly what I want to do.’” 

It was the solution to trying to be two places at once. Attracted to the idea of being able to focus his medical practice and his personal life, in 2007 Olson became a trailblazer in the now growing world of OBGYN hospitalists. “As a hospitalist, you’re in labor and delivery. You’re physically there. That’s all you do. You’re not in two places at once. Sure, things can still be tough and stressful. But it allows me to focus. For me, I focus just on the OB portion of it.”

This focus improved his confidence. “I became just a better and better doctor, because you practice this one thing,” Olson says. “And when you’re a better doctor, you don’t make mistakes and you reduce malpractice and improve patient outcomes.”

Physician burnout is often described as feeling unable to do any one one thing to the level of excellence that your patients — and your loved ones — deserve.

This feeling of divided attention, of feeling pulled in multiple directions erodes confidence, and can ultimately lead to burnout.

While the causes of and solutions to physician burnout are complex, for Olson, the choice to become a hospitalist was a sure way to steer clear of it. “I was fairly happy as a solo OBGYN, but once I became an OBGYN hospitalist I truly thrived,” he says.

Olson does miss getting to know families in an ongoing way and delivering multiple generations of babies that private practice affords. But he finds a new sort of connection with women and families in labor and delivery.

“As a hospitalist you don’t have that long history of attachment to your patient,” he says. “But now I can sit down with the patient and ask how they’re doing, look them in the eye. I can turn to the husband and ask him what he does for a living. She’s you’re only patient. You’re right there. And I can give them as much attention as they need. This is much better patient care. Number one, it’s patient safety. And number two increased quality.“

Olson says, his wife and family benefited from his focus, as well. “It’s shift work,” he says. “I could say to my wife, ‘Yes, I’ll be there Tuesday and Wednesday, because I didn’t have to go to the hospital until Thursday.” When he is home, he’s home. When he’s delivering babies or attending to women in labor, he is only there. He is in one place at time, guilt-free,100 percent focused.

Olson shares his passion for being an OB/GYN hospitalist with others. He became the founding president of the Society of OB/GYN Hospitalists, which provides support, information, education and fellowships. And, for the past 15 years, Olson has also been a principal and consultant for the National OBGYN Hospitalist Consulting Group. He hopes to inspire other physicians to choose the path of hospitalist so they can say, “I am doing exactly what I want to do.”