BURNOUT HAS BEEN a common buzzword in corporate spaces over the last couple years, and now it’s coming into the spotlight in the emergency room. A major new study published last month in the Canadian Medical Association Journal looked at how emergency physicians are faring these days, and found that the burnout runs deep — like, deep deep, and is a major factor in why doctors are packing it in and leaving the profession.
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“Emergency physician burnout remains high, with almost half of respondents having reduced their work hours, and 10 per cent having left the profession,” the study found. “Burnout levels in 2020, 2022 and 2025 remained unchanged. Respondents pointed to a broken healthcare system, unrealistic societal expectations and insurmountable workplace challenges as reasons for burnout.”
While physicians leaving the profession has, at times, been talked about as a pandemic phenomenon, the authors find that the burnout crisis both predates, and has outlasted, Covid. “Emergency physician loss is a crisis for the Canadian healthcare system,” the researchers wrote, “and our results suggest attrition to the emergency workforce, which in turn exacerbates burnout among those who stay.”
“You can picture what it would feel like if you never get a moment of rest. You can’t feel like you’ve accomplished a full day’s work without having to cut corners” —Peter Mergmanis
“I don’t think what we’re experiencing now relates to the pandemic, and it would have happened whether we had the pandemic or not,” said Dr. Kerstin de Wit, speaking to Canadian Occupational Safety. “We’re working much harder. The pressures are much, much greater on every shift. We’re just exhausted.”
Physicians aren’t necessarily experiencing a unique form of burnout, and many of the causes are the same as we see in corporate and office settings: resources are stretched, with hospitals asking staff to do more with less. The context of the emergency room is certainly unique, and the pressures of the job are heightened, but the underlying structures producing burnout are familiar.
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“You can picture what it would feel like if you never get a moment of rest,” said Peter Mergmanis, co-chair of London’s Ontario Health Coalition chapter. “You can’t feel like you’ve accomplished a full day’s work without having to cut corners.”
The Canadian Medical Association hopes the research will prompt some action, both in the form of short-term support and long-term structural fixes. “Attrition will continue until emergency department overcrowding is mitigated,” the CMA wrote in an editorial. “The profession cannot wait for complex systems-level solutions to be realized; immediate actions must be taken to protect emergency department personnel now.”
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