West and colleagues just published survey results showing 63% of doctors had burnout symptoms, such as emotional exhaustion and cynicism, at the pandemic’s peak in 2021. The rate declined to 42% in 2023, but was still higher than the burnout rate in most pre-pandemic years. And doctors reported more problems with work-life balance than other workers.
Almost one in five doctors plans to stop practicing medicine within five years, according to a workforce survey by the Minnesota Department of Health. Reaching retirement age was the most common reason, but feeling burned out was second.
Freitas graduated from medical school and then completed on-the-job residency training in Indiana in 2002 — an era when young doctors were pushed hard. A year later, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education recognized the risks of overworking residents and capped their average work weeks at 80 hours.
“We were trained to keep going until you can’t go anymore, and then keep going after that,” she said.
Freitas said her patients kept her energized. Getting a call that one of them was in labor was an adrenaline rush. She would hustle across the street from her clinic to Ridgeview Medical Center in Waconia for the delivery.
Joy faded, she said, as she encountered less face time with patients and more e-visits, insurance authorizations and paperwork. She didn’t sleep well, either, trained to expect a call at any hour. Then her parents died, and she lamented that work prevented her from being available for them. She was missing moments in the lives of her three teenagers as well.
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