Physician work-life balance

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No one will contest that being a physician (M.D.) is a challenging career and the education and training to become a doctor is equally challenging. Today’s physicians-both male and female- are questioning the required unbelievably long work hours as well as the hours spent on-call that have been traditional for decades. Spending time with family is highly desirable as is much needed ‘down-time” in general. As the saying goes, as someone faces their mortality and reflects back on their life, it rarely if ever is said “I wish I spent more time at work”.

An interesting post written by Michelle AU, M.D., an Anesthesiologist addresses the fact that today’s physicians are “choosing to limit their work-hours, altering the scope of their practice, and deciding to concentrate of medical specialties based on lifestyle choices as much as interest in the medicine itself. In essence, the current crop of young doctors is recalibrating the personal and professional expectations set by our predecessors, taking the radical stance that the work-life balance applicable to all other professionals might possibly be applied to us as well.” What can be driving this movement to work-life balance is the disturbing fact that “physicians have a higher rate of suicide than the general population-40% higher for male doctors, and an astonishing 130% higher for female physicians.”

Dr. Au references Gardiner Harris’s article in The New York Times, “More Doctors Say No to Endless Workdays.” This article follows a 3 generation family of medical doctors –both male and female-and their experiences regarding work hours and working conditions within their chosen practices. It also contains information gathered by a top physician recruitment firm that has found that younger doctors are seeking a better quality of life when conducting a job search. “Merritt Hawkins, a top doctor recruitment firm, reported that 51 percent of the positions it filled in the past year were for hospitals, up from 14 percent eight years ago. And even a growing share of the jobs the company filled in private practices included income guarantees from hospitals. Young doctors surveyed by Merritt Hawkins listed quality of life well above finances as the most important factor in their job searches, and just 1 percent said they were willing to practice alone. Many young doctors will not take jobs that require them to be on call.”

All of us know that we perform better in our jobs or careers when we somehow manage an acceptable balance between the time needed to perform our jobs at a high level and spend time with our families and just having some fun. Physicians are no different. Does anyone really believe an exhausted and depressed doctor is a top practitioner?