How to Handle Interruptions Without Alienating Your Team
From Stimulus - Learn Tools to Crush It in Your Medical Career by Rob Orman, MD
February 2, 2026 · 43 min · Episode 164
About this episode
This episode discusses strategies for managing interruptions in emergency medicine to improve efficiency and reduce burnout.
Emergency medicine has an interruption-based workflow. There's no getting around some of that, but recurrent interruptions erode quality of care, accuracy of documentation, concentration, and ultimately the ability to leave work on time. While some interruptions are unavoidable, most are predictable and preventable. Reclaiming control over interruptions is more than a way to improve efficiency; it's about patient safety, reducing medical errors, and safeguarding your mental health. Constant task switching creates cognitive load, contributing to emergency physician burnout and compromising clinical decision-making. In this episode, we explore tactical and mindset shifts that emergency clinicians can use to reduce interruptions, enhance documentation efficiency, and avoid the hidden costs of task switching. We'll cover practical strategies for managing EKG interruptions, skillful ways to manage nursing questions, and setting boundaries all while maintaining team dynamics and patient care quality. Whether you're an emergency physician, PA, NP, or resident, these evidence-based strategies will help you work smarter, reduce stress, and reclaim control of your clinical day. Finishing…
People in this episode
Host: Rob Orman, MD
Topics covered
- interruptions
- emergency medicine
- patient safety
- burnout
- clinical decision-making
- documentation efficiency
Keywords
- interruptions
- emergency medicine
- patient safety
- burnout
- documentation
- task switching
- clinical decision-making
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Out-On-Time
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