Running on Empty: Regaining Compassion When Compassion Fatigue Affects Empathy for Learners and Faculty

Many providers in service-oriented professions experience compassion fatigue. Unlike compassion fatigue described toward patients, many clinician-educators and program administrators are experiencing compassion fatigue for learners and colleagues. During the COVID pandemic, learners experienced more lenient sick policies and numerous burnout mitigation strategies. With the end of the COVID public health emergency, many institutions and programs are returning to pre-COVID expectations that might differ from what trainees have experienced in their programs to date. When learners make personal requests that might adversely impact their peers, program leaders may experience compassion fatigue for their trainees. When learners reach out afterhours and on weekends asking for immediate action on non-urgent requests, these behaviors might amplify compassion fatigue for trainees. Program leaders might also be seeing reduced empathy for the current stresses of residency and might hear references to reduced resilience in this generation from faculty, which can also contribute to compassion fatigue for faculty. During this workshop, participants will review the various elements of compassion fatigue. Participants will complete an individual self-reflection exercise using the validated Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL) to understand their own unique experience with burnout and compassion fatigue. Workshop facilitators will review evidence-based strategies for recognizing compassion fatigue in themselves or others, increasing coping skills, and building strategies for augmenting compassion satisfaction. Participants will leave the workshop with an individualized plan for personally addressing compassion fatigue, a framework for recognizing and approaching compassion fatigue in others, and a cadre of successful mitigation strategies from other institutions.