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.
