PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

Laid off: Doctors no longer immune to pink slips

Losing a job can be traumatic for physicians, shattering self-esteem and causing them to question their abilities.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. June 30, 2003.

Max Burger, MD, didn't expect to get the proverbial pink slip.

He had been a family physician for about 18 years, was making a nice living and seemed to fit firmly in the medical landscape.

Then he got laid off.

Twice.

"I was crushed. I felt I wasn't much of a doctor if I couldn't hold a job," said Dr. Burger, 54, who now is in solo practice in Southampton, N.J. "Considering what the job situation is in this country, nobody is immune. Anything can happen."

Time was, doctors didn't lose their jobs, but maintained immunity through rough economic times. But now those rough times are hitting everyone, from automobile plant workers to dot-com employees, to health care professionals.

Hospitals, clinics and universities are trimming deep into their ranks to save money, or closing down altogether. Doctors are no longer untouchable.

"It's one of the new stressors of physicians. Historically, it was such a rarity for a physician to lose a job," said Wayne Sotile, PhD, co-director of Sotile Psychological Associates in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"In the last five years, we've seen more laid-off physicians than in the prior 20 years collectively. It's happening more that excellent physicians are getting caught in clinical crossfires and losing their jobs over nothing to do with their clinical skills."

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