Burnout in Doctors: A Dangerous Healthcare Crisis on the Rise
A recent American research showed that 54 per cent of the physicians in the country suffer from burnout symptoms. This means that if you need urgent medical care, there is more than one in two chances that you’ll be assigned to a medical practitioner who is feeling burned out from their job.
But burnouts aren’t just a phenomenon prevalent in America; statistics from around the globe suggest that the number of physicians feeling under-pressure is increasing everywhere.
Expectations vs. Reality in Medicine
Medicine is one of the most respected professional fields in the world with more than 89 per cent of the people admitting that they have great admiration for doctors. Physicians are also better paid in comparison to average workers. Then why exactly do more than 54 per cent of the doctors feel burned out? According to Psychology Today, there could be a number of reasons why physicians are beginning to crack under pressure.
Doctors are experts when it comes to matters pertaining to healthcare but very few of them receive training outside the scope of medicine. In real life, physicians face a number of challenges which limit their ability to focus solely on providing medical care to patients who need it.
For example, many hospitals have begun to cut back on times for operating rooms in order to be more cost-efficient but such important healthcare decisions are being made without the consultation of surgeons who will eventually have to be the ones to face the unreasonable time constraints while performing risky procedures.
Doctors Face Increasing Demands in Workplace
Doctors who spend 10 years of their lives receiving education in expensive medical schools choose to sacrifice their time and money in order to be able to help people, but most of the training they receive in schools focuses on the practice and theory of medicine, whereas in real life, they face several different challenges in their work environment that they haven’t been trained for.
Being a physician isn’t as simple as diagnosing and treating patients. In reality, doctors need to manage a complex and growing network of patients, document the care each patient receives and coordinate treatments across a number of healthcare providers.
Apart from dealing with the operational challenges of practicing medicine, physicians also have to face demanding regulations pertaining to the use of electronic medical records (EMRs), as well as a rise in the number of patients who need medical care under the expanded coverage of Affordable Care Act. The increasingly hectic conditions in medical centers and the unprecedented administrative burden on doctors are taking a toll on physicians’ health, contributing to a burnout epidemic.
Burnout Epidemic
The journal of Health Affairs published an important study a few years ago which reported that doctors were dedicating less time taking care of patients and more time operating their ‘desktop machines’.
Physicians facing burnout can pose a serious threat to patients’ lives as they are more likely to make mistakes, be less efficient at their jobs and send patients to different medical providers to dodge responsibilities. All of these burnout consequences eventually lead to increase in complexity and cost of medical care. Many, who are unable to deal with the pressure, quit their jobs and some even admit to developing depression and anxiety.
In a survey featured in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 50 out of 7,000 medical practitioners in the U.S. planned to leave their profession within the next two years, while 20 per cent of them had decided to reduce their number of clinical hours to avoid burnout.
A Medical Crisis on the Rise
The crisis has become even more severe now as healthcare suffers from a gap in supply and demand – with hospitals facing an ever-increasing stream of patients seeking care but not having enough physicians to meet the demand.
A study shows that the number of Americans who need medical care in old age will double by 2040, meanwhile a quarter of physicians in the U.S. are planning to retire within the next decade.
Last year, medical schools also experienced a decrease in the volume of applicants by 14,000 in comparison to the year before and the Association of American Medical Colleges says that if the downward trend continues, the country will become short 100,000 doctors in the next decade.
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