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Survey: Physician morale low

October 31, 2006 — 8:01pm ET

These survey results may be a downer, but they're not much of a surprise. American doctors are stressed, tired and discouraged by the state of the healthcare system, according to the results of a new survey from the American College of Physician Executives (ACPE). Low reimbursement, loss of autonomy and respect, bureaucratic hassles and excessive patient loads are leading many physicians to question whether they've chosen the right career, the ACPE said. Almost 60 percent of the 1,205 physicians surveyed said they'd considered leaving the practice of medicine. Three-quarters of doctors responding said fatigue was a problem, and two-thirds were experiencing emotional burnout. Perhaps more worrisome was that about one-third said they were facing marital and family discount and depression. A scary 4 percent even admitted to suicidal thoughts.

So what can we do to boost physician morale? Obviously, the whole healthcare system needs an overhaul, but that's not going to happen overnight. Are there short-term steps hospitals, group practices and insurers can take to make things better? What would you do first, and who should be involved? Write to me and let me know what you think. I'll publish some of your responses in a future newsletter.

For more about the survey:
- see this ACPE release

Related Article:
Primary care physicians not happy with their salaries. Article

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Comments

By Anonymous | Posted 10:53am | November 2, 2006

i have practiced for close onto 15 years now...mostly india, middle east and rural Eire..nothing fancy, very basic bare bones medicine, GP work mostly..what i saw was that simple lives , realistic expectations, self acceptance, and a greater sense of human to human interaction led to a very satisfying doc-pt relationship...mostly none of these pts had insurance..they came in , we talked..i recommended meds or whatever was reqd...they paid cash if they could..nothing if they couldn't..but all would leave feeling better for having been heard and attended to
i did not make much money,true... but i was and am very satisfied with my career choice, and corny as it may sound, not all the money can compensate for making a person feel better..physically, emotionally etc etc
Docs need to get in touch with themselves and do what feels authentic...we neeed to go back to being healers, empowering our patients to take charge of their health, we need to get rid of the middle men the insurers, lawyers etc etc...until this happens and until healthcare is ONLY between doc (or healer) and patient with no interference from big business/big pharma the docs are going to always feel manipulated and lost..when we lose these middle men ...we automatically lose the need for humungous salaries, and we can get down to the real work at hand...healing.
I know it sounds ridiculously naive ...but i know from personal experience , it works.
god bless.

By Anonymous | Posted 12:06am | February 19, 2007

Hey I have been practicing for 15 years...this is what I did...dump every poorly paying insurance...get rid of bad rubbish...any insurance medical director etc would bother me I would show them the the door...gave me a lot of satisfaction and peace of mind!!..Fellow docs should just take it easy...why not work 8 hours a day and not a minute more .....Docs should learn to stand up for themselves...think positively and DONOT accept contracts that you donot like...If working 60 -80 hours a week pays less then why work even more hours opening yourself to lawsuits? Life is short donot waste it by working killer hours.... JUST SAY NO. ENJOY YOUR FAMILY, YOUR LIMITED NUMBER OF PATIENTS AND THE LIMITED NUMBER OF HOURS INVEST TIME IN YOURSELF THAT HAS BEEN IGNORED FOR MANY YEARS>>>YOU WILL BE A LOT HAPPIER AND ALSO WILL SEND A MESSAGE .....

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