Over 45% of radiologists and other docs are burned out, down from the 2021 peak

About 45% of U.S. radiologists and other physicians believe they are burned out, down from a peak of 63% in 2021, according to new data from the American Medical Association shared Wednesday. 

Despite the improvement, docs remain at greater risk for such workplace fatigue when compared to other professions. AMA said it continues to seek solutions, which could include fixing the “broken” Medicare payment, “unburdening” physicians from administrative headaches such as prior authorization, and making technology less cumbersome. 

“The ebbing rate of physician burnout is a welcome result of the strides made since the COVID emergency to correct existing systematic flaws in healthcare that interfere with patient care and inflict a toll on physician well-being,” AMA President Bruce A. Scott, MD, said in a statement April 9. “Continued efforts are needed across the health system to drive policy change, burden relief, workflow enhancement and technology improvement that are essential to fighting the root causes of the physician burnout crisis,” he added later. 

Stanford University internal medicine specialist Tait D. Shanafelt, MD, and colleagues conducted the survey in late 2023, sharing the results in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. They targeted a sample of 90,000 U.S. physicians across all medical specialties, reaching a final tally of 7,643 participants. Researchers also sought to oversample docs in non-primary care specialties to increase the number of responses from less common areas of medicine. 

The AMA said this is the only survey to regularly measure physician burnout rates between 2011 and 2023. This year, about 45.2% reported at least one symptom of burnout. The lowest measure during this 12-year period was about 38% in 2020 before bouncing up to the peak the following year. Before that, burnout rates were roughly 44% in 2017, about 54% in 2014 and 46% in 2011. At all points, the study demonstrated that occupational burnout among physicians was higher relative to the entire U.S. workforce. 

Overall, 42% of physicians said they were satisfied with work-life integration in 2023. That’s compared to 30% in 2021, about 46% in 2020, nearly 43% in 2017, almost 41% in 2014, and 49% in 2011. Further analysis showed that physicians are at increased risk of burnout (with an odds ratio of 1.82) and were less likely to be satisfied with work-life balance than other U.S. workers. This finding persisted even when adjusting for age, gender, relationship status, hours worked per week, and level of education. 

“The fact that these differences persist after adjusting for work hours illustrates that the challenges with burnout and [work-life integration] in physicians may be due, at least in part, to characteristics of the work or work environment rather than only the high number of hours that many physicians work,” Shanafelt and co-authors wrote. “The persisting high rates of occupational burnout among U.S. physicians have substantive consequences for the healthcare delivery system.”

Congress has allocated funds to address this issue, the authors added. However, most have been devoted to treating clinicians in distress, rather than the structural factors that may be fueling burnout. 

“Further investment to improve the practice environment (e.g., different models of care delivery, elimination of administrative burden and low-value work, improved staffing, enhancing teamwork and team-based care, and appropriate incorporation of technology) is now necessary,” Shanafelt et al. wrote. “Healthcare organizations must lead the efforts to drive this change. Progress is not achieved through slogans or goals but by establishing the structures and processes necessary to achieve the desired outcomes.”