“Every stress leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older.”
Hans Selye, M.D. (1907- 1987)
The phenomenon we now know as “stress” has an interesting history. While attending the German Medical School in Prague, 17-year-old Hans Selye observed that patients suffering from different diseases exhibited the same symptoms. After presenting the discovery to his professors, it was dismissed as irrelevant to the focus of medical study at the time. Despite their disregard to his findings, Dr. Selye continued his examination of this shared array of symptoms to determine our present-day definition of stress.
From 1936 until his death, Dr. Selye authored 1,700 scientific journal articles and seven seminal books in an effort to further define and test the boundaries of stress. His conclusions were simple: a variety of different stressors inflicted on the human body result in similar symptoms such as fatigue, nervousness, and lack of focus. As these stressors continually afflict the body, biological resistance eventually gives way to exhaustion, leading to further complications such as heart disease and hypertension.
More than 80 years after Dr. Selye introduced the clinical definition of stress and corresponding recommended remedies, workplace stress continues to increase. As the American Institute of Stress (AIS) reported in a study, job-related stressors continue to be the top cause of stress. However, the report makes the important distinction that the job activity is not usually the cause of stress, but rather the “person-environment” the stressed employee must navigate. For stress to exist, the individual must perceive the challenge of navigating the people in the environment to be overwhelming. We must also recognize that individuals handle and interpret causes of stress differently: a situation may be tolerable to one individual but overwhelmingly stressful to another.
Aside from its mental toll on individuals, stress has a physical and financial cost. U.S. businesses spend $300 billion annually on stress-related absenteeism, employee turnover, and diminished productivity. In a 2016 study conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 43% of U.S. workers reported they believed their health to be threatened by stress. The study found a higher incidence of stress (53%) among healthcare workers—stress levels which were surpassed only by restaurant workers.
The irony of this 80-year struggle with stress is that within the hospital walls devoted to caring for the human condition, healthcare leaders have created a system that has resulted in the second highest incidence of stress among U.S. workers. Indeed, the work is difficult and exhausting, but we should reflect back on Dr. Selye’s concept of a person-environment. Perhaps this is an opportunity to remember that we as leaders are responsible for providing order and safety in the workplace so that our most valued resources (people) can navigate the complexities of healthcare without the challenge of a negative person-environment. The dynamic of team, co-worker and supervisor must be managed to avoid the unhealthy outcomes of stress.
If an employee is creating an unacceptable person-environment for another employee, we must address that issue. In an environment where stress has been proven to lead to critical medical conditions, we would be doing our valued employees a moral disservice by choosing not to manage this environment on their behalf. As leaders, it is our responsibility to remember that the negative environment we create or tolerate can cause harm to our employees. If we fail to attempt to minimize workplace stressors, we have failed our moral obligation to those we lead. Therein lies the irony of healthcare stress.
© Rod Brace, Ph.D.