Going to Market: Neoliberalism as a Driver of Pediatrician Burnout

• In Event: Medical Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 17. Healthcare Providers & Practice I

Abstract

This paper focuses on how broader forces of corporatization and neoliberalization in medicine shape attending physicians’ wellbeing. In particular, I draw on 15 months of ethnographic data studying general pediatricians working in clinics located in high- and low-SES neighborhoods to trace how the confluence of patient consumerism, free-market policies, and growing interference by third-party payers can severely overwhelm physicians, leading to near-impossible work conditions. In the low-SES clinic, pediatricians had to regularly solve upstream social problems from their downstream exam rooms, thereby filling a larger social policy vacuum, while simultaneously brokering tenuous trust with their skeptical patient base. At the high-SES clinic, in contrast, pediatricians fought to keep up with the sheer volume and specificity of worried parents’ demands, while trying to keep highly opinionated, savvy, and consumerist parents satisfied. In all clinics, pediatricians also had to swim upstream against a highly distrustful political climate that undervalued children’s health and wellbeing. Still, no matter how outlandish, physicians did their best to meet and surpass these exhausting demands, at considerable cost to themselves.

Author

• Tania M. Jenkins, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill