Physician burnout

[Doctor Money Matters]

Do you physicians think the prevalance of burnout is increasing or are we just exposed to the topic more because of social media? I did a recent podcast episode on this with Eric Levi, MD the physician who wrote the viral article from earlier this summer. The dark side of doctoring.

I am interested in your thoughts.

Thanks

[Peds]

Both.

[VagabondMD]

I think that it is real and very concerning. In a national society meeting this spring, there was a session on burnout, and it was the only SRO session the entire week. The room was jam packed. It could not be more telling, IMO.

[Hatton]

People have been burned out in OB/GYN for years.  I think EMRs are increasing the burn out.  Also people are talking about it now.

[StarTrekDoc]

Yes, both.  It's accelerated because medicine, like many fields is changing rapidly with technology and rules/regulations.

Cottage industry moving to Walmart/BigBox delivery across multiple industries have forced a lot of retirements -- adapt or perish.

[uptoolate]

hatton1 wrote:

People have been burned out in OB/GYN for years.  I think EMRs are increasing the burn out.  Also people are talking about it now.

Click to expand...

Agree with this.  I loved Ob but it can be a grind and this is exacerbated by the unrealistic expectations of some patients.  I tell learners that I burned out twice in Ob - once doing relatively low volume, very high acuity and the second doing very high volume, relatively lower acuity.  In my school's Professional Competencies programme there are a few physician wellness sessions and I continually advocate for more. They are always very well attended sessions.

Very much agree with opinion on EMRs.  Our group resisted this in the office for years.  Not ready for prime time.

[antheus]

I think it's both as well. Overall though, medicine is becoming less and less desirable to practice and more and more competitive to do so. It's not just a matter of the stress of practice but all the stress along the way. When I was on the admissions committee for my medical school I would see applicants with first author publications from HIGH SCHOOL. Literally every step of the way is stressful and you keep telling yourself that it's going to get easier once you pass one hurdle but the next becomes more difficult and more important. In undergrad you need to get good grades and do well on the MCAT and then you'll get into the med school of your dreams. Then you need to do well in med school. Then you have to do well on Step 1 so you can get the specialty of your dreams. Then you have to have good clinical grades. Then you have to interview well for residency. Then you need to make connections to get a good job so you can pay off your mountain of debt. Literally every step of the way is full of stress and just when you think you're done there's another even more stressful hurdle to climb and this goes on for 10+ years with no breaks and then you finally enter a profession where you are asked to do more for less on a daily basis with less and less time for patients and as a result less job satisfaction.

tl;dr - it's become more stressful and difficult to get to the point where you can even practice medicine and once you do so it's less rewarding, both personally and financially

[DMFA]

I've never heard of any physician anywhere ever getting burned out, no, not at all...I'm sure there's not a whole website dedicated to cranking out endless tear-soaked clickbait on the matter, either.

[AnotherSecondOpinion]

I agree that it is most likely both: increasing prevalence and media exposure.  The stresses of EMR, billing/coding, declining reimbursement with an increased workload to compensate are key factors.  Not that some of these are new problems, but they sure haven't gotten better.

[Doctor Money Matters]

Antheus,

Very good points. I agree with the level of competition which has increased significantly, though Im not sure that isnt true for other fields of study as well. Kids in school today have amazing CVs in comparison to 20 years ago. While most docs are close if not in the 1%, it seems that even in medicine the wealth is concentrating to practice owners, CEOs, etc. However the liability is still mostly ours.

 

DMFA,

Thanks for the sarcasm. Are you serious about the website? I honestly have not heard of it.

[The White Coat Investor]

Doctor Money Matters wrote:

Antheus,

Very good points. I agree with the level of competition which has increased significantly, though Im not sure that isnt true for other fields of study as well. Kids in school today have amazing CVs in comparison to 20 years ago. While most docs are close if not in the 1%, it seems that even in medicine the wealth is concentrating to practice owners, CEOs, etc. However the liability is still mostly ours.

 

DMFA,

Thanks for the sarcasm. Are you serious about the website? I honestly have not heard of it.

Click to expand...

You've never heard of KevinMD?

[Doctor Money Matters]

I don't look at KevinMD very much honestly. From what I have seen of it they talk about a variety of stuff. Do they really have a huge amount of people doing clickbait articles on burnout. I know that his twitter account sends out a ton of tweets though.

[DoubleMDs]

Definitely both. Definitely real.

[ENT Doc]

Both, but there are factors making it more prevalent.  See the following from the National Academy of Medicine which just had a collaborative on physician wellness:

https://nam.edu/initiatives/clinician-resilience-and-well-being/

One of their posts was the attached image.  If you look at the left hand side where the external factors are shown I think we can all agree they've worsened over time.  We can work on our individual leadership and resilience all we want, but if we don't address the big ticket external factors we're not being very efficient about the solution.

[EJ at Dads Dollars and Debts]

I think we are talking about it more and researching it more. Happiness permeates through so much of our conversation with administration it kind of makes me want to revolt. It is good to be happy but it is not the end all be all in medicine.

 

I do think things like vanishing small practices (increased number of employed physicians (and thus low control of your life)) and EMR with patient emails (which did not exist when I was in medical school or residency in the 2000s) have contributed to dissatisfaction/burn out. Maybe part time physician work is the future.