title: Surgeons' Emotional Experience of Their Everyday Practice - A Qualitative Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Physicians' emotions affect both patient care and personal well-being. Surgeons appear at particularly high risk, as evidenced by the high rate of burnout and the alarming consequences in both their personal lives and professional behavior. The aim of this qualitative study is to explore the emotional experiences of surgeons and their impact on their surgical practice.
  
  
  RESULTS
  27 purposively selected liver and pancreatic surgeons from 10 teaching hospitals (23 men, 4 women) participated. Inclusion took place until data saturation was reached. Data were collected through individual interviews and thematically analyzed independently by 3 researchers (a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and a surgeon). 7 themes emerged from the analysis, categorized in 3 main or superordinate themes, which described surgeons' emotional experience before, during, and after surgery. Burdensome emotions are present throughout all 3 periods (and invade life outside the hospital)-surgeons' own emotions, their perception of patients' emotions, and their entwinement. The interviewees described the range of emotional situations they face (with patients, families, colleagues), the influence of the institutional framework (time pressure and fatigue, cultural pressure to satisfy the ideal image of a surgeon), as well as the emotions they feel (including especially anxiety, fear, distress, guilt, and accountability).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Emotions are ubiquitous in surgeons' experience, and their exposure to stress is chronic rather than acute. Considering emotions only in terms of their relations to operative errors (as previous studies have done) is limiting. Although complications are quite rare events, the concern for possible complications is an oppressive experience, regardless of whether or not they actually occur.
authors.affiliation: INSERM-U1178, 97 Boulevard de Port Royal, F-75679 Paris, France.|Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Descartes, Paris, France.|Department of hepatobiliopancreatic surgery and liver transplantation, Hôpital Beaujon, Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris, F-92118 Clichy, France.
authors.forename: Massimiliano
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Orri
authors.affiliation: Centre de Soins Psychothérapeutiques de Transition pour Adolescents, Hôpital d'Argenteuil, F-75107 Argenteuil, France.|ECSTRA Team, UMR-1153, Inserm, Paris Diderot University, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France.|Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Revah-Lévy
authors.affiliation: Department of hepatobiliopancreatic surgery and liver transplantation, Hôpital Beaujon, Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris, F-92118 Clichy, France.|Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Farges
mesh_terms: D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D036301:Qualitative Research; D066231:Surgeons / Q000523:psychology*