The nature of a physician’s job has evolved in myriad ways over the past few decades—in fact, the constant change has itself become a key part of the profession.
“When I started at my current job, our division chief was joking that it used to be, for primary care physicians especially, people would start right out of training, right out of residency, get their little workstation or office and it would be like, ‘All right. See you in 40 years!’” said Jill Jin, MD, MPH, an internist and senior physician adviser for the AMA, who is one of the authors of the AMA STEPS Forward® “Value of Feeling Valued Playbook.”
But for physicians now, if they are to stay engaged, happy and productive, leaders must support them in their professional development and the inevitable changes that will come over the years.
Being static is “yesteryear and not for physicians today,” Dr. Jin said. “And not just the new, early-career physicians, but for physicians at any stage in their career. We really are looking to have growth during our career.”
Though the percentages of physicians reporting symptoms of burnout in the U.S. have lessened from the startlingly high numbers seen during the COVID-19 public health emergency, it remains a troubling and all-too-common issue, with nearly half of the nation’s physicians still saying they are experiencing burnout.
As the leader in physician well-being, the AMA is reducing physician burnout by removing administrative burdens and providing real-world solutions to help doctors rediscover the Joy in Medicine®.
Experts say that one way to prevent burnout is to ensure the physician knows how important they are—feeling valued is key to well-being.
“Whether or not physicians felt valued turned out to be very highly linked to their burnout rates,” Dr. Jin said.
The playbook points out, additionally, that spending at least 20% of your professional time pursuing your professional interests can both stave off and lessen burnout. With that in mind, the authors of “The Value of Feeling Valued Playbook” laid out several ways to help physicians develop in their roles and pursue their professional passions.
Leaders need to help physicians find their niche
Professional development can mean different things to different physicians, said Dr. Jin. Leaders should be prepared to help them find what interests them.
“That can take many paths,” she said. “Some people want to just continue to develop clinical expertise via attending CME [continuing medical education] conferences, and that's great if they know that their passion is clinical care. Others are interested in research, and others are passionate about teaching and medical education.”
A new area of increasing interest, Dr. Jin said, is entrepreneurship.
“For the younger physicians entering practice, more and more there is this entrepreneurship interest,” she said. “They have a lot of ideas, and they want to do something on the side with their knowledge and energy.”
“There is also this kind of shift back, a little bit, to private practice, the physician-owned independent practice. And that job of running a practice is a newer part of professional development,” Dr. Jin says, adding that there are also opportunities for leadership within larger health systems. “That's another path that many people are interested in.”
The playbook lays out areas of continuing professional development that include:
- Clinical medicine.
- Teaching and medical education.
- Health systems leadership and administration.
- Entrepreneurship.
- Research.
- Patient community engagement.
- Professional community engagement.
Have the conversations
For leaders looking to start a dialogue with physicians about their professional development, the playbook offers opportunities for introducing the topic and possible conversation-starters to get the ideas flowing.
There are, of course, regular performance reviews, into which discussions about interests and passions should be incorporated. Even if there isn’t a formal review process, leaders should meet with physicians regularly to talk about what’s going right in the practice, where opportunities for improvement are and what kinds of interests the physician has outside of clinical practice.
Some suggested questions for opening the door to a discussion on professional development are:
- Where do you see yourself in three to five years?
- Outside of taking care of patients, what activities or pursuits excite you?
- We always need to improve how our practice works. Are there areas of improvement you would like to work on with others?
- Are there aspects of health care delivery that you want to learn more about (for example, value-based care or population health)?
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How to make professional development happen
There are many ways to encourage professional development, going beyond the yearly or biannual check-ins that are already a part of leader interactions with physicians.
Health care organizations can also create separate or alternate career tracks that help physicians evolve into roles that focus more on education, clinical medicine or research. For example, using titles such as “master clinician” or “master educator” to reflect achievement on particular tracks.
Organizations can also create or encourage enrollment in internal or external leadership training programs, or provide sponsorship for business administration training or MBA, MHA or MPH degree programs.
With coaching and mentoring—especially for physicians just entering their careers—and events such as collegiality dinners, leaders can also help develop connections for physicians looking to network and gain new skills.
There should be an adequate budget for CME and protected time that makes it easier for physicians to undertake it, and there should also be chances for doctors to take part in quality improvement or committee work that improves care delivery.
Finally, when physicians reach important milestones such as academic promotion and tenure—as well as those outside academia—they should be recognized by their organizations and leaders, to show the impact of their hard work.
Show how professional development helps everyone
The playbook also suggests advocating with senior leadership to make the case for the need for professional development opportunities—including by creating a budget for activities that are outside of clinical practice.
A large practice, for example, can set aside 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) of physician administrative effort for department chairs to use as needed, letting them offer professional development opportunities for their physicians without asking them to do the work unpaid. The time can be broken into smaller amounts of FTE so that multiple physicians can benefit.
“There are lots of different options. And the idea is that I don't think there's any physician who, if you gave them the opportunity to do something in one of these categories, to follow their passions more, would say no,” Dr. Jin says. “Most people want to do more than just see patients day-to-day without any protected time to do anything else.”
AMA STEPS Forward® open-access toolkits and playbooks offer innovative strategies that allow physicians and their staff to thrive in the new health care environment. These resources can help you prevent burnout, create the organizational foundation for joy in medicine and improve practice efficiency.
