2024 Survey of Locum Tenens Physicians and Advanced Practitioners
PHYSICIAN BURNOUT: A PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS One of the factors driving the physician shortage is not directly related to demographics, public health metrics or training capacity, but is centered on how physicians feel about their profession. Professional burnout among physicians has been endemic for years and continues to be pervasive. A 2022 study published by the Mayo Clinic showed that mean emotional exhaustion scores among physicians increased by 38.6% year-over-year. Overall, 62.8% of physicians had at least one manifestation of burnout in 2021, compared with 38.6% in 2020. (Changes in Burnout and Satisfaction With Work-Life Integration in Physicians During the First 2 Years of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Tait D. Shanafelt, MD, et al. Mayo Clin Proc. 2022 ec;97(12):2248-2258. doi: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2022.09.002. Epub 2022 Sep 14.) The study concludes: A dramatic increase in burnout and decrease in satisfaction with work-life integration occurred in US physicians between 2020 and 2021. Differences in mean depression scores were modest, suggesting that the increase in physician distress was overwhelmingly work related. Given the association of physician burnout with quality of care, turnover, and reductions in work effort, these findings have profound implications for the US health care system. The COVID-19 pandemic was partly responsible for the increased incidence of burnout among physicians found in the study. However, the Harvard H.T. Chan School of Public Health identified physician burnout as a public health crisis in 2019, prior the pandemic. PHYSICIAN TURNOVER ON THE RISE One result of pervasive physician burnout is rising rates of physician turnover. Physician attrition rates rose 43% between 2010 and 2018, up from 5.3% to 7.6%, according to a study published in October of 2023. (Why do physicians depart their practice, Ryan O’Connell, et al. The Journal of the American Board of Family Physicians, Oct. 2023) The study, which interviewed physicians who left their ambulatory care practices, found that physicians were motivated to leave their practices primarily to:
ACHIEVE HIGHER EARNINGS
HAVE MORE FLEXIBILITY
INCREASE TIME OFF
Physicians included in the study also were driven to leave their current practices by other factors, including isolation, the corporatization of medicine, the pandemic, inbox burden, difficult patients, volume and intensity of work, and advancement opportunities. (Physician turnover more complex than just burnout, study finds. Susanna Vogel, Healthcare Dive, Oct. 20, 2023) .
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