Introduction:
Burnout syndrome is a phenomenon occurring more and more often among employees. Physicians are a group very heavily exposed to the risk of professional burnout syndrome due to the nature of the work.

State of the art:
The work of doctors and the entire medical staff is saturated with stressors located in different planes. These include personality traits, attitudes to work, and the structure and organization of work. Burnout is a long-term process, in which the successive phases occur incrementally. Most often 12 phases are distinguished. A prerequisite for the development of burnout is the presence of chronic stress. Typical sources of stress occurring in the medical profession might be: taking responsibility for one’s own action, daily contact with the disease, the need for constant vigilance, the need to communicate with both the patient and his or her family, the sense of having no influence on the fate of patients of palliative care, claims and dissatisfaction of patients, shift-work, night work, inadequate conditions for treatment (e.g., poor premises conditions, lack of adequate equipment), and inconveniences connected with relations with the hospital staff.

Summary:
Burnout can be defined as a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion which manifests itself in the form of chronic fatigue. At the same time, it is accompanied by a negative attitude towards work, people and life, a sense of helplessness and the belief in the hopelessness of one’s position. Particularly exposed to the risk of burnout are medical doctors who set themselves high goals, are ambitious and committed to performing their duties well, work under time pressure, and are often on duty for several hours