It’s no secret that burnout has significant personal, clinical and organizational consequences for physicians. Beyond improving general quality of life, reducing burnout can lead to better patient care and workplaces for doctors.
Addressing burnout in medicine is becoming less taboo. Instead of a sign of weakness, it’s a necessary acknowledgment of industry challenges. And that’s the first step to improving work-life balance.
Here’s a guide to burnout’s primary symptoms with evidence-based physician burnout solutions. If you need help, Physicians Anonymous offers helpful 1:1 peer support. If you need an immediate intervention, call the Physician Support Line at 1-888-409-0141.
What is physician burnout?
Over half of United States doctors (60%) experience burnout—an ongoing state of stress and low energy. Unmanaged, it can impact a physician’s mental and physical condition. And on an organizational level, it increases turnover, litigation risk and poor morale.
Clinically, burnout risks patient safety and increases the likelihood of malpractice. As one family medicine doctor and Sermo member says, “If health personnel are not in good mental health, patients cannot be cared for as they need.”
Medical school and residency programs condition physicians for burnout. Medical education programs often don’t teach—and traditionally don’t advocate for—reasonable workplace boundaries. The same contributing factors that drive success in medical education can also cause burnout, like putting patients first at all costs, the culture of perfectionism, and onerous workload expectations.
Physicians also experience barriers to care. One psychiatrist and Sermo member said,
“My organization offers no meaningful support programs, leaving me feeling completely unsupported and overwhelmed.” A global Sermo study of physicians found that 34% would be more inclined to seek care if they believed they would face no professional repercussions.
3 identifiable symptoms of burnout
Dr. Christina Maslach, whose research helped define burnout, describes it as “an erosion of the soul caused by a deterioration of one’s values, dignity, spirit and will.” Earlier, in 1981 along with her colleagues at the University of San Francisco, Dr Maslach published the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI).
The MBI is the standard for burnout diagnosis. It asserts three primary diagnostic dimensions of burnout: exhaustion, depersonalization and professional efficacy. These provide a framework for understanding how to help physician burnout:
- Emotional exhaustion (EE): This refers to chronically feeling emotionally overextended and depleted of emotional capacity.
- Depersonalization (DP) or cynicism: Depersonalization refers to detached or callous attitudes toward patients, colleagues or the work itself. Depending on the MBI’s version, it may refer to depersonalization or cynicism as the diagnostic category. Depersonalization as a diagnostic category pertains to service- and care-based professions, while cynicism pertains to all occupations.
- Reduced professional efficacy (PA): This refers to a growing sense of incompetence and diminished achievement in one’s work.
One group of researchers from the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School used the MBI to study burnout among 1373 multispecialty physicians across five years. They found physician burnout rates in the U.S. are increasing. More specifically, the research suggests that burnout is alarmingly higher among female physicians, primary care physicians and those with 10 or fewer years of experience.
The most common causes of physician burnout
There’s no universal physician burnout treatment or cause. The drivers of one physician’s burnout may not be the same as the next’s. That’s why physicians should reflect on their experiences and identify what might be causing it.
We can think of common causes of burnout in terms of personal, organizational and industry-related influencing factors.
Personal influencing factors
The personal factors that may contribute include:
- Specialty misalignment: A specialty’s patient population, administrative requirements, and workplace setting must suit its physicians’ temperaments. One ex-GP said on Sermo, “I got fed up with being a GP (paperwork, expenses, running an office, etc.), and I transitioned to do some surgical assisting—best decision of my life!”
- Poor personal well-being habits: A Sermo survey found that 45% of physicians cited their work schedule as the greatest challenge to maintaining work-life balance. By extension, many don’t prioritize sleep, healthy eating or exercise. The literature closely associates each with burnout.
- Inadequate support systems: A Mayo Clinic study suggests that physicians are significantly more likely (165%) to feel isolated and detached from loved ones compared to nonphysicians. It found that the industry’s influence on personal relationships may be the foremost cause of physician burnout, and adjusting for the influence of work on personal relationships eliminates the heightened rates of burnout risk among physicians.
A psychiatrist posted on Sermo about navigating these personal factors and preventing physician burnout. “Personally I am trying to do my best. Physical training early in the morning in order to preserve time spent with family for instance is a good, but demanding, strategy. I am trying not to fill entirely my private practice agenda even at the cost of reducing earnings a little bit. And lots of consciousness to live the best I can, the little but good time with family and friends”.
Organizational influencing factors
According to a Sermo study, more than half of physicians (55%) believe organizations aren’t doing enough to reduce professional burdens. The burdens that directly cause burnout include poor management, onerous workload expectations and limited career advancement opportunities.
An organization may also indirectly contribute to burnout by failing to offer or prioritize wellness support initiatives. Throughout one Sermo survey, 48% of respondents said they would utilize the mental health support that their employer or a member organization provides.
By extension of failing to prioritize wellness initiatives, institutions may also indirectly contribute to burnout by demanding unfavorable work-life balance conditions. These conditions may stem from onerous contract clauses or workplace culture. In fact, 63% of Sermo’s physicians feel they successfully maintain work-life balance, while 37% report struggling with it. A general practice doctor in the U.K. explained in a recent Sermo conversation, “Yes it is very difficult to maintain balance between work and family life. Balance needs to be maintained so as not to tilt a doctor to mental illness and stress.”
Industry-related influencing factors
Two foremost industry-related causes of burnout are onerous administrative tasks and medico-legal risk.
- Administrative burdens: According to the 2024 Medscape Physician Burnout and Depression Report, 62% of doctors say that administrative burdens are their primary cause of burnout. Bureaucratic tasks may even prevent physicians from taking meaningful breaks. “Shorter vacations are stressful and almost not worth it in terms of coming back to a bunch of paperwork,” one family medicine doctor and Sermo member explained.
- Medico-legal risk: A leading driver of overtreatment is fear of malpractice. The more a doctor fears malpractice, the more prone they might compensate, and that extra work can lead to burnout.
How to prevent physician burnout
Approximately 8 out of 10 (79%) Sermo study respondents agree that addressing burnout needs to be a priority in healthcare. A Sermo member and family medicine doctor reflects on this, saying, “We should normalize talking about mental health, especially because we are health personnel.”
The literature on reducing physician burnout is limited. However, most agree that physician-directed interventions alone without concurrent organizational support may not be enough to mitigate burnout. Systemic change will be more impactful than individual action.
Physician-directed burnout interventions
Exercise and mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are the two primary doctor-directed interventions for treating physician burnout:
- Exercise: A systematic review of 21 studies revealed a strong correlation between physical activity and decreased burnout, particularly with regard to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.
- MBIs: Of all MBIs for physician burnout, researchers have studied mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) most extensively. While we still need more research, both interventions may be effective in reducing emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and professional efficacy.
One Sermo member, a U.S.-based cardiologist, offers this advice: “Take regular breaks throughout the day to rest and recharge—simply stepping away from work for a few minutes. Make time for self-care activities that help you relax and unwind, such as exercise, meditation or hobbies.”
Organization-directed burnout interventions
A meta-analysis of 19 studies suggested that organization-directed interventions reduced burnout more effectively than physician-led interventions. But approaches, components and intensity varied significantly.
Across studies, the most effective burnout interventions integrated:
- Communication: Communications may include meetings where physicians can discuss difficult patient cases and work-life challenges, regular leadership email updates on clinic changes and structured clinician-leadership 1:1s to address schedule concerns.
- Structural changes: Structural adjustments can take the weight off physicians. This may include pairing one assistant with each physician, extending visit times and offloading non-clinical tasks to clerical staff.
- Teamwork: More hands means less work for individuals, like standardizing MA-nurse workflows, implementing nurse coordinators to provide oversight on patient issues and sharing call schedules.
Discuss burnout solutions with fellow physicians on Sermo
In a survey of 180 Sermo physicians, 79% said it should be a high priority for the healthcare industry to address burnout, and 48% said they would take advantage of mental health support if they had it. But most importantly, over 20% of physicians desire an online community to talk about their problems and find support from peers.
On Sermo, you can discuss the topics that matter most to you and your patients—including burnout. Find other doctors who want to share their experiences and have a few laughs along the way.
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