Finally, both preventative and reactive mental health supports need urgent funding. In our 2017 CFMS member survey, it was reported that around 37% of Canadian medical students meet the criteria for burnout. This is a staggering figure, and even more frightening is that it is a prepandemic one.
Wesley Verbeek, who was a medical student in 2017, said it best. Another problem is that students training to care for the mental and physical health of others don't have time to tend to their own health. Wesley Verbeek said, “You have to learn and do so much in a short period of time. There is a lot of pressure to keep going, keep going, keep going, because the more you can continue the status quo, the more likely you are to get matched to the residency you want.”
As our former president, Dr. Franco Rizzuti, explained, “Medical students tend to be high-functioning and highly resilient, but the accumulation of many stressors leads to anxiety, depression and burnout".
Time-crunch pressure, lack of sleep, 70-hour weeks during clinical rotations, witnessing patient death for the first time and personal issues add up, and “even the best coping mechanisms can start to fail,” said Rizzuti. With burnout among residents and staff physicians estimated at 50% or above, the emotional struggles of medical students represent “the beginning of the pipeline,” said Rizzuti. “How are we going to improve overall health and wellness in the general physician population if our trainees—without the stress of running a business, without some of the on-call requirements—have high levels of burnout and depression?”
So the combination of the long wait times and inaccessible mental health supports with trainees, who due to the demands of their learning have limited opportunity to access them, creates a crisis.