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Emotional PPE

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Back in February, I showcased the sobering results of the Medscape Physician Depression and Burnout Report 2024: Of those doctors surveyed, 53% reported burnout and 23% depression. And those disturbingly high statistics had increased from the previous year. 

I recently listened to a Stanford Medcast Episode interview of Ariel Brown PhD called “Physician Distress Miniseries – Emotional Health Support for Health Care Workers.” (You can get CME credit for listening to the podcast and completing the quiz afterward.) According to the session, each year in the United States, one in 10 physicians think about or attempt suicide and around 400 die by suicide. 

At the start of the pandemic, Dr. Brown started a nonprofit with Massachusetts General Hospital Anesthesia Program Director Dr. Daniel Saddawi-Koefka, called The Emotional PPE Project. The organization provides free and confidential psychological counseling for healthcare workers. Here is the website.

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Major Changes are Needed to Head Off a Worsening Physician Shortage

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The AAMC recently published a report estimating that the United States will face a physician shortage of up to 86,000 doctors by 2036.  

A variety of issues are contributing to the problem, including the lack of adequate residency slots. A bipartisan bill called the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2023 (H.R. 2389/S. 1302) has promise but has yet to progress through Congress. The legislation would gradually increase the number of Medicare-supported residency slots by 14,000 over the course of seven years.

Other issues are at play, including an aging American population, one that requires more healthcare. Additionally, doctors who are 65 and older make up 20% of the physician workforce, and those between age 55 and 64 constitute 22%, meaning that many doctors are reaching retirement age. 

A cohort also left clinical medicine during and after the pandemic, and, in a related issue, burnout is very high for those who stayed. A whopping 49% of doctors surveyed through the annual Medscape questionnaire reported being burned out.

The opaque medical school admissions process and the very high cost of medical school are also barriers.

Anecdotally, I hear of many family members who wait weeks or even months to see a physician. Most of those people live in urban areas; the problem is significantly worse in rural locations. Becoming a physician is a noble endeavor, but without structural support, many talented students will pursue other fields. We can’t blame them.

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The Medscape Physician Depression and Burnout Survey 2024 is out and the News Isn’t Good

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For the last several years I’ve made sure to blog on the annual Medscape Physician Survey that chronicles physician satisfaction. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much always bad news.

If you’re an optimist, you’ll be happy to hear that burnout rates were lower than last year. You may remember that the numbers skyrocketed during the pandemic. Last year 53% of physicians surveyed reported burnout and 23% reported depression. This year the numbers are 49% and 20%, respectively. If you’re a pessimist, you’ll notice that those numbers are still very high, with approximately half of the doctors surveyed reporting burnout. That’s a very big number.

Of note, emergency physicians are the most burned out at 63%, and the runner-up is obstetrics and gynecology at 53%. Plastic surgeons are the least burned out at 37%.

See more stratification and data by taking a look at the survey results here.

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Medscape’s Annual Physician Burnout Report is Out and – As Usual – It’s Disturbing

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Every year Medscape surveys physicians about career satisfaction. The last few annual reports have been pretty upsetting. Unfortunately, 2022’s results are not happy either.

This year emergency physicians (my colleagues) reported the highest burnout rates of all specialties at 60%. Last year this number was 43%, so there was a large jump in already-high dissatisfaction levels. Next in line were critical care physicians at 56%. But even the specialty with the smallest percentage of burned out physicians – public health and preventive medicine – had rates at 26%. So even in the happiest cohort, one in four surveyed doctors reported burnout.

Looking at gender, fifty-six percent of female physicians surveyed reported burnout; men seemed less dissatisfied, but they were at 36% so that’s not so great either.

Bureaucratic tasks were perceived to be the biggest contributor to physician burnout by their own assessment.

It’s important for those who are considering a career in medicine to approach it with eyes wide open: Take a look at the Medscape National Physician Burnout & Suicide Report 2022 slide deck yourself for more details, and check out my Kevin MD piece on EM burnout here.

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Medscape’s National Physician Burnout Report 2021 is out – and it’s Troubling

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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.

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About Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to
stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital.
She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated
Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more

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