Medscape’s annual physician lifestyle report puts critical care physicians at the top of the league for burnout, with 53% of critical care respondents saying that they were burned out.

Emergency medicine was not far behind at 52%, and half of all family physicians, internists, and general surgeons reported burnout. Interestingly, specialties reporting the highest severity ratings (nephrology 4.30, cardiology 4.29, and plastic surgery 4.28) were not those with the largest percentage of burned-out physicians.

Causes

Bureaucratic tasks and spending too many hours at work rated as the most frequent causes of burnout, with scores of 4.74 and 3.99, respectively, based on a scale of 1 ("not at all important") to 7 ("extremely important"). Insufficient income (3.71) and computerisation (3.68) were also found to be important causes of burnout. The Affordable Care Act dropped to fifth place as a burnout cause this year, from third place in the 2013 Medscape report.

More women (51%) than men (43%) reported burnout.

Burnout peaks in mid-life, with over half of physicians reporting burnout (51% of those between 36 and 45 years of age and 53% between ages 46 and 55) and then declines to 22% in physicians 66 and over.

The full report is available on Medscape

Source: Medscape

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