Physician Burnout and Specialty Work in the Context of Healthcare System Imperatives

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 5. Emotional Labor in Healthcare Delivery

Abstract

Employee burnout, long recognized as a risk for healthcare workers, is potentially costly for the quality of patient care and care workers’ own well-being, as well as for the workplace when medical errors and accelerated employee turnover occur. Burnout is now increasingly recognized as a risk in physicians’ work, with at least 50% of US physicians reporting professional burnout. US physicians appear to suffer more burnout than other American workers, and the gap is widening. Burnout reported by physicians increased from 2011-2014 for physicians in all medical specialties, but the rate increase varied among the specialties surveyed. Among 25 specialty categories, physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) physicians ranked third in reported burnout rate in 2014, compared with ranking tenth in 2011. PM&R physicians’ work centers on maximizing functional outcomes for patients with chronic conditions, many of whom are also older persons, and an increasing number of older persons are candidates for rehabilitation services. Concurrent changes in the Medicare reimbursement structure along with quality performance imperatives that impact lengths of stay and available rehabilitation care settings have had far-reaching impact on PM&R practice. Healthcare organization efforts to address burnout focus largely on person-centered strategies, e.g. promoting wellness and work-life balance, along with facilitating coping with organization-specific challenges such as electronic medical record requirements. More challenging to address, however, may be healthcare policy and demographic trends that exert significant influence on physician burnout, an hypothesis that is explored in this paper drawing on the PM&R experience as an illustration.

Author

• Nancy G. Kutner, Emory University