News: Burnout rises above 50% in some specialties, Massachusetts declares crisis

Responses to a new Medscape survey indicate that 44% of physicians meet the criteria for burnout, up from 42% last year, according to Medscape. Additionally, the survey found that 11% are colloquially depressed (feeling down or sad) and 4% are clinically depressed.

The responses show that 14% have had thoughts of suicide but have not attempted it, and 6% said they preferred not to answer. According to this survey, 1% of physicians have attempted it, Medscape reported.

And these results aren’t isolated to the Medscape survey. According to a study released in October 2018, physicians are so disillusioned with the profession that 70% are unwilling to recommend the profession to their children or other family members.

More recently, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that nearly half of physicians are experiencing burnout symptoms and up to 32% regret their career choice (depending on the specialty).

In light of these studies, several Massachusetts healthcare organizations have declared a crisis that includes a call for three interventions to help physicians and their employers address burnout, HealthLeaders Media reported, including:

• Address mental health by reducing stigma and unnecessary constraints on physicians’ ability to practice and encouraging physicians to seek help for symptoms of burnout.
• Improve EHRs by involving physicians in technology development, allowing software developers to craft apps to boost functionality and usability, enabling third parties to develop apps for EHRs, and developing artificial intelligence capabilities such as analyzing physician narratives and clinical documentation.
• Appoint chief wellness officers with five primary responsibilities:
  
  • Assess the  level and extent of burnout across the organization
  • Establish quality improvement goals and processes, and report findings about key areas such as wellness and physician satisfaction
  • Report findings, trends, and strategies to organizational leadership as a dashboard metric
  • Develop technological and staffing approaches to ease physician work and administrative burden (e.g., scribes and EHR improvements)
  • Propagate successful approaches to curbing physician burnout

“We need our healthcare institutions to recognize burnout at the highest level, and to take action steps to survey physicians for burnout and then identify and implement solutions,” said Alain Chaoui, MD, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society and a practicing family physician, in a statement. “We need to take better care of our doctors and all caregivers so that they can continue to take the best care of us.”

Editor’s note: To read more about the Medscape survey, click here. To read the report from the Massachusetts healthcare organizations, click here. To read HealthLeaders Media’s coverage of the situation, click here.