While some pandemic-related stressors have receded, burnout among physicians and other healthcare professional remains at elevated levels. Studies show relatively high percentages of physicians are cutting back hours or are thinking about leaving the profession, meaning potential reductions in healthcare access, quality of care and patient safety.
The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the United States will face a shortage of between 38,000 and 124,000 physicians by 2034.
In this episode of Health Science Radio, Lotte Dyrbye, MD, MHPE, senior associate dean of faculty and chief well-being officer at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, discusses the magnitude of the problem, identifies the predictors of burnout, and shares ideas on reducing the stressors facing healthcare professionals.
Dyrbye is a national thought leader in physician burnout, having authored more than 130 journal articles, abstracts and other articles related to physician well-being. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine Action Collaborative on Clinician Well-Being and Resilience and co-authored the National Academy of Medicine consensus study report Taking Action Against Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being.
“It’s a huge issue, and I think that’s why leaders in medicine have called it ‘the burnout crisis,’” Dyrbye says in the podcast.
Contributing factors of burnout include physicians’ and other healthcare professionals’ long hours, low autonomy and flexibility, unpredictability of work schedules, and complicated electronic health records, just to name a few. “It’s definitely complicated, and there are a variety of other drivers,” Dyrbye says.
She adds that there is no single-size solution to the problem, but that “organizational will” is an important starting point. “There has to be organizational will to make well-being of the healthcare worker a priority in order for any organization to have a chance to bend the needle,” Dyrbye says. “But once that will is there, then you start to see healthcare worker well-being really being a performance metric. And once it's on the scorecard for leaders, then you start to see more meaningful action.”
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