The Medscape National Physician Burnout & Suicide Report 2021 is now available, and it seems rather evident that the pandemic has negatively affected physicians who were already under a lot of stress, especially those in critical care medicine.

More than half of critical care physicians report being burned out (51%), and critical care ranks as the highest specialty in the burnout questionnaire, followed by rheumatology (50%) and infectious disease (49%). Those numbers compare with last year’s report at 44%, 46%, and 45%, respectively. This year, my field of emergency medicine (EM) was at 44%, which sounds high, but, sadly, EM was not even in the top ten burned out specialties. That gives you an idea of the severe scope of the problem.

Women reported burnout at 51% compared to 36% for men, and while this disparity has been present for many years, the discrepancy between the genders was greater in this most recent report.

Seventy-nine percent of those surveyed relayed that their burnout started before COVID, while 21% reported after. Bureaucratic tasks and too many hours at work were the major reported contributors to burnout.

Take a look at the Medscape National Physician Burnout & Suicide Report 2021 slide deck yourself for more interesting details, and check out my Kevin MD piece on EM burnout here.