Residents' work and health. Perspectives from university occupational health in Uruguay

Abstract

Situations of social, verbal, physical and psychological violence directly affect the professional development and health of medical residents both nationally and internationally. With the aim of analysing the working conditions and academic training of medical residents, reflective workshops were used to analyse accounts of typologies of work situations experienced during residency training in four public hospitals in the city of Montevideo. Work demands were identified that do not allow residents to reconcile work and rest times correctly, in addition to emotional demands, situations of violence and reduced room for manoeuvre when deciding how to carry out their work.

The results obtained in the present investigation are consistent with findings obtained in other studies on the statistically significant association between burnout syndrome and being in residency, as well as workplace violence experienced by young doctors in the exercise of their residency. The experience presented here shows the importance of instances of collective reflection in academic and care contexts, articulating the knowledge coming from the field inhabited by medical residents and the academic knowledge focused on occupational health.