Burnout among physicians has decreased since the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic but physicians continue to be at higher risk of it than the general U.S. working population.
Those are the most recent findings of a Mayo Clinic study, in which 45.2% of physician respondents reported experiencing at least one symptom of burnout, down from 62.8% in 2021 in the throes of the pandemic and on par with 2011 levels when the study first began.
Since surveying began nearly 15 years ago, Mayo Clinic has consistently found higher levels of occupational distress in physicians relative to other U.S. workers. Its study assesses burnout among respondents across indices of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and depression, and also quantifies respondents’ degree of satisfaction with work-life integration and professional fulfillment – most recently reported at 42.2%.
That number, however, has fluctuated over the years, up from 30.3% in 2021 but still below the 46.1% rate in 2020. While the overall statistical improvement on both fronts isn’t to be dismissed, “any little wins that we can get, we’ll take them,” said Cristel Escalona, MD, an Edinburg pediatrician and incoming chair of the Texas Medical Association’s Committee on Physician Health and Wellness. Still, “we’ve got a long way to go.”
At TexMed, TMA’s largest annual conference, Dr. Escalona is leading a CME session called “Contemplative Medicine: Integrating Mindfulness and Compassion into Everyday Clinical Practice,” on Friday, May 9, from 1:45 to 2:45 pm at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort in Grand Oaks C. The session includes an overview of Buddhist principles and suggestions for how physicians can practice self-care and self-compassion along with empathy in conversations with patients.
TexMed will also feature more burnout-focused CME at TexMed, originating from the Committee on Physician Health and Wellness, including:
- “Beyond the Stethoscope: Supporting the Mental Well-being of Physicians”
- “Mindfulness: Here and Now”
- “At Home and at Work: Fostering Personal and Professional Relationships to Support Physician Well-Being”
Additionally, TMA Insurance Trust has contracted with Anticipate Joy to provide confidential, unlimited counseling sessions for free to all Texas physicians, irrespective of TMA membership, accessible through the association’s Wellness First webpage.
“The fact that doctors can reach out and utilize that service is beautiful,” Dr. Escalona said.
She worries, though, that physicians who aren’t actively involved with TMA might fall through the cracks if they aren’t aware of the service and describes the origins of physician burnout as multifaceted and “soul sucking.”
“There’s not one single root cause as to why we continue to be challenged within the profession,” she said, a longstanding reality Texas Medicine has reported.
Dr. Escalona names the heavy workload, long hours, bureaucratic burdens, plummeting payment rates, and, frequently, a lack of support as contributing factors and cites the “serious emotional and psychological strain” they exert in combination.
The practice of medicine, which for Dr. Escalona is “a calling,” is made up of a population beset by particular risk factors for burnout, she says.
“When you look at physicians as a whole, you’re looking at a batch of overachievers, because getting into medical school is crazy hard,” she said. “We have a lot of trouble trying to set boundaries and say no.”
That can translate into a heavy mental load. “We’re a special group,” Dr. Escalona said: Compared to workers with 8 am to 5 pm jobs, for physicians, “there’s no checking out. You’re just always on. And you’re always worried about your patients. You can’t turn that off.”
The challenges that permeate the practice of medicine juxtapose the 65.1% of Mayo study respondents who answered yes when asked if they would choose to become a physician again.
“You see it as something greater than yourself; you see it as something more than a job,” Dr. Escalona said. “What I was put on the planet to do is to fix little kids in hospitals. "So as beat down as I get by insurance companies and fighting with them, as beat down as I get by bureaucracy … that, more often than not, hinders me from being able to do what’s best for the patients that lay before me, I still choose to get up and fight the next day.”
Find additional resources, including self-assessments, CME, local medical society wellness programs, and more on TMA’s Wellness First webpage.