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Featured topic and speakers
Burnout in medicine: When was burnout at its peak for doctors? Why are doctors so burnt out? What causes burnout in health care? Is there a National Burnout Study?
Our guest is Michael Tutty, PhD, group vice president of Professional Satisfaction and Practice Sustainability at the American Medical Association. AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger hosts.
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Speaker
- Michael Tutty, PhD, group vice president, Professional Satisfaction and Practice Sustainability, American Medical Association
Transcript
Tutty: At the height of COVID, burnout went from being the lowest it had ever been in 2020 to the highest it had ever been, at 62.8% of physicians experiencing at least one symptom of burnout.
Unger: Hello and welcome to the AMA Update video and podcast. Today, we're talking about the latest findings from a long-running study on physician burnout. Our guest today is one of the co-authors of that study, Dr. Michael Tutty. Michael has a PhD in public policy and is the group vice president of Professional Satisfaction and Practice Sustainability at the AMA in Chicago. I'm Todd Unger, AMA's chief experience officer, also in Chicago. Michael, it's a pleasure to have you with us today.
Tutty: It's fantastic to be here, Todd.
Unger: The study that we're talking about today has been tracking physician burnout for more than a decade. Why don't you just start by giving us a little bit of background on the study itself. When did it begin, and what exactly does it measure?
Tutty: Sure, Todd. The AMA has been working on addressing the issues that challenge physicians, removing those obstacles that make it harder for physicians to practice high-quality patient care. And so we wanted to track to see if we're actually doing a good job of that. What are those obstacles? What is the changes in burnout over time?
So we have been partnered with Stanford Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and now, the University of Colorado School of Medicine that we've been tracking physician burnout every three years since 2011. So we've been doing this major study, which is a general population of physicians, but also a comparative data set of the general U.S. working population, so we can compare physicians to the general working population. So we've done every three years, although we added an extra study year in 2021 due to the tremendous changes that were happening during COVID.
Unger: Well, I'm curious, in the post-pandemic environment, what we're seeing. Tell us a little bit about some of the findings, and how do they compare to previous years?
Tutty: So unfortunately, in 2021, when we did our big national burnout study at the height of COVID, burnout went from being the lowest it had ever been in 2020 to the highest it had ever been, at 62.8% of physicians experiencing at least one symptom of burnout. For 2023, our most recent data set, burnout has now gone down to about 45.2% of the general population, about in line to what we saw in 2017. So it peaked in '14, went down in '17. Went down in 2020, and then went to the highest levels in 2021, and now, we're back down to 45.2% of physicians experiencing at least one symptom of burnout.
Unger: Well, I guess it's good to see things trending in the right direction. What do you think is driving the improvements that we're seeing?
Tutty: Well, a lot of what we saw in that peak in 2021 was the height of COVID and all the experiences physicians were facing with COVID, due to the increased work pressures of trying to care for more patients. The lack of personal protective equipment. All the politicalization of health that was happening during that time, and just the long-term fatigue of working at that intense pace, when we surveyed in 2021, after working at this for more than a year, physicians with COVID. So we've moved out of that. We're starting to see burnout come back to some more normal levels, but still higher than it needs to be.
Unger: Now, I'm really curious to find out more about something you referenced, which is you did research that compared physicians versus the general population. I mean, everybody says, to a certain extent, that they experience burnout. But—
Tutty: Yes.
Unger: —Michael, take us through the numbers. What does it show?
Tutty: So we have been tracking physicians against the general working population. And for our short two-item burnout survey, physicians had 39.5% burnout, compared to 24.6% for the general working population. And that also includes work-life integration for every data point, every year that we've been tracking, burnout was higher for physicians than the general working population. And work-life integration was worse for physicians than the general population in every year we've been tracking it, unfortunately. So there's something unique about the health care situation, about the health care environment.
Unger: Absolutely. And those differences drive home what a big problem physician burnout still is. Is there anything in the latest survey that really stood out to you?
Tutty: Well, one of the things that's quite interesting is the number of people who report working over 60 hours or more per week. While the general working population, it's about 5% who report working 60 or more hours per week, it's about a third of physicians who report working more than 60 hours or more a week. Now, on average, physicians work about 10 hours more per week than the general working population.
But interestingly, even after adjusting for age, gender, relationship status, and hours worked, physicians still had higher levels of burnout and worse work-life integration. So even after accounting for those increased hours, physicians have higher levels of burnout, which means that in part, the hours alone aren't the cause or the factor why physicians are experiencing higher levels of burnout than the general working population. That there are some other factors that physicians experience.
Unger: Wow, that's really interesting. So what does that mean? As you think about physician well-being work going forward, what do you look at, and what do you hope to learn?
Tutty: So what we understand is that there are unique things that are happening in the health care environment. And we want to tackle those root causes of physician burnout, those structural barriers, those things that make it harder to practice medicine than it should. And so at the AMA, we've been tackling those, identify what they are, and offer solutions at the physician practice, hospital, and health system level to remove those obstacles. We're also trying to advocate at a higher level, at the state and federal level, to remove some of those obstacles that are set into law and regulation as well.
Unger: Michael, thank you so much for sharing these findings with us and for joining us today. Reducing physician burnout is one of the AMA's top priorities. And to support those efforts, we encourage you to become an AMA member at ama-assn.org/joinnow.
And to learn more about AMA's Joy in Medicine program, visit ama-assn.org/joy. That wraps up today's episode, and we'll be back soon with another AMA Update. Be sure to subscribe for new episodes and find all our videos and podcasts at ama-assn.org/podcasts. Thanks for joining us today, and please take care.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this podcast are those of the participants and/or do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.
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