Medical Student Burnout: A Social Cognitive Learning Perspective on Medical Student Mental Health and Wellness

Medical students\u27 mental health is a topic of great interest as it has implications not only for medical students but also for the patients of these future doctors. Medical students face many academic pressures and burnout is one possible consequence of these stressors with some studies suggesting that burnout affects up to 50% of medical students. Our own study of American students in a medical programme located outside of the U.S. showed that student perceptions of the medical learning environment were linked with burnout suggesting that reducing burnout requires a pedagogical approach that addresses academically related stress factors. This chapter contends that one institutional strategy to prevent problems such as burnout is to adopt a theory-based approach to instructional design that addresses the causes of medical student stress and burnout from the instructional side