35% of US cardiologists suffer from burnout, 44% feel stressed
Physician burnout has been a growing problem in healthcare for years, robbing specialists of the passion that once led them to a career in medicine and potentially having a negative impact on patient care.
How has this ongoing issue impacted cardiology? In the United States, 35.4% of cardiologists report experiencing burnout, according to a new industry survey that received 2,025 responses. Nearly 44% of respondents reported feeling stressed.
Findings from the survey were presented Saturday, March 28, at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together with World Congress of Cardiology (ACC.20/WCC). Laxmi Mehta, MD, director of preventive cardiology and women’s cardiovascular health at Ohio State University and the study’s lead author and, described these numbers as “alarming” in a statement.
“Not only can burnout affect the quality of care they provide to patients, it also has many other negative personal and professional ramifications,” added Mehta, who is also chair of the ACC Membership Committee’s Clinician Well-Being Workgroup.
Each person was able to define “burnout” in their own terms—no blanket definition was used at any point—but key symptoms were mentioned throughout the survey. Of the respondents who said they were experiencing burnout, 23.9% said they were experiencing at least one symptom, another 9.9% said they had “chronic symptoms” and 1.6% said they felt “completely burned out.” Burnout was more common in women, mid-career cardiologists, and specialists working more than 60 hours per week.
“Cardiology remains a highly desirable medical specialty to pursue, but adverse work environments are consistently associated with burn out,” Mehta said. “We need to remember work-life balance is important and to take care of our patients and ourselves.”
The team’s work in this area is not complete; its next steps include taking a closer look at how burnout impacts “the full care team,” searching for potential predictors of a situation that may lead to burnout, and working with the ACC to address this topic.
According to Medscape’s annual National Physician Burnout & Suicide Report, released January 2020, 44% of cardiologist respondents said they felt exhausted, stressed or even drained by their jobs. More information on that report is available here.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.