You might find this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education interesting:
Academic Doctors Increasingly Despair at Push for Revenue Over Research, Study Finds
By KATHERINE S. MANGAN
A growing number of academic physicians are stressed out and depressed because they are being pressured to treat more patients and generate more money, and they have less time for teaching and research, a report published this month concludes.
The report, which appears in the January issue of the journal Academic Medicine, found that 20 percent of the professors surveyed suffered symptoms that were consistent with clinical depression, 77 percent said they did not get enough sleep, and 29 percent said they emotionally withdrew from family members and friends up to several times a month.
"For many faculty, the lure of academia seems to have been the relatively stable mix of patient care, research, and teaching," said the report's lead author, Barbara A. Schindler, vice dean for educational and academic affairs and a professor of psychiatry at Drexel University's College of Medicine. "Yet in recent years, patient-care responsibilities have crowded out time for teaching and research."
The pressure on medical professors to pull in more income is coming from academic health centers that are squeezed by declining Medicare reimbursements and soaring malpractice-insurance rates, Dr. Schindler noted.
The report is based on the responses of about 2,000 full-time faculty members at four American medical schools. Officials at two of those schools asked that their institutions not be identified, so all of the names were withheld. However, the authors noted that they included one private medical school and three public schools in geographically diverse areas of the country.
The authors examined data from 1984 and compared it with responses in 2001, just before the September 11 terrorist attacks. They ignored data after that date because it was hard to assess how much of the heightened anxiety and depression might have stemmed from the terrorist strikes.
So how much harder do today's academic physicians have it? The researchers found that, from 1984 to 2001, the work week inched up from an average of 60.4 hours to 60.8 hours. In 1984, about 23 percent of that time was spent caring for patients, but by 2001, that portion had jumped to nearly 41 percent. The time spent supervising residents and medical students dropped from 21 percent to 15 percent during that period. Research time was cut in half, from 29 percent of a physician's time to 15 percent.
"The faculty who used to be able to spend time by a patient's bedside watching a student perform a physical exam is constantly being pulled away to treat patients themselves," Dr. Schindler said. "They're all talking about how little time they have to teach, and they're unhappy."
Younger faculty members were affected more than their senior colleagues, the researchers found.
"We thought faculty who were older and had seen all the changes in medicine would have more difficulty adjusting, but the most unhappy were the junior faculty, which is pretty scary," Dr. Schindler said. "These are the people who will be in place 20 or 30 years from now and will be training the next generations of doctors."
Recent studies have shown that medical students, as well as recent graduates, are more concerned with balancing their work and family lives and are less likely than their baby-boomer predecessors to be satisfied with jobs that require countless nights in the hospital.
"The results of our study add to the growing evidence that American medicine is in trouble," the report concludes, in part because students are being taught by professors who are "increasingly stressed and dispirited." The report calls on medical educators to provide better mentoring and support, including medical referrals, for struggling faculty members.
The article is titled "The Impact of the Changing Health Care Environment on the Health and Well-Being of Faculty at Four Medical Schools."
You can access the article's abstract at http://www.academicmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/1/27
Academic Doctors Increasingly Despair at Push for Revenue Over Research, Study Finds
By KATHERINE S. MANGAN
A growing number of academic physicians are stressed out and depressed because they are being pressured to treat more patients and generate more money, and they have less time for teaching and research, a report published this month concludes.
The report, which appears in the January issue of the journal Academic Medicine, found that 20 percent of the professors surveyed suffered symptoms that were consistent with clinical depression, 77 percent said they did not get enough sleep, and 29 percent said they emotionally withdrew from family members and friends up to several times a month.
"For many faculty, the lure of academia seems to have been the relatively stable mix of patient care, research, and teaching," said the report's lead author, Barbara A. Schindler, vice dean for educational and academic affairs and a professor of psychiatry at Drexel University's College of Medicine. "Yet in recent years, patient-care responsibilities have crowded out time for teaching and research."
The pressure on medical professors to pull in more income is coming from academic health centers that are squeezed by declining Medicare reimbursements and soaring malpractice-insurance rates, Dr. Schindler noted.
The report is based on the responses of about 2,000 full-time faculty members at four American medical schools. Officials at two of those schools asked that their institutions not be identified, so all of the names were withheld. However, the authors noted that they included one private medical school and three public schools in geographically diverse areas of the country.
The authors examined data from 1984 and compared it with responses in 2001, just before the September 11 terrorist attacks. They ignored data after that date because it was hard to assess how much of the heightened anxiety and depression might have stemmed from the terrorist strikes.
So how much harder do today's academic physicians have it? The researchers found that, from 1984 to 2001, the work week inched up from an average of 60.4 hours to 60.8 hours. In 1984, about 23 percent of that time was spent caring for patients, but by 2001, that portion had jumped to nearly 41 percent. The time spent supervising residents and medical students dropped from 21 percent to 15 percent during that period. Research time was cut in half, from 29 percent of a physician's time to 15 percent.
"The faculty who used to be able to spend time by a patient's bedside watching a student perform a physical exam is constantly being pulled away to treat patients themselves," Dr. Schindler said. "They're all talking about how little time they have to teach, and they're unhappy."
Younger faculty members were affected more than their senior colleagues, the researchers found.
"We thought faculty who were older and had seen all the changes in medicine would have more difficulty adjusting, but the most unhappy were the junior faculty, which is pretty scary," Dr. Schindler said. "These are the people who will be in place 20 or 30 years from now and will be training the next generations of doctors."
Recent studies have shown that medical students, as well as recent graduates, are more concerned with balancing their work and family lives and are less likely than their baby-boomer predecessors to be satisfied with jobs that require countless nights in the hospital.
"The results of our study add to the growing evidence that American medicine is in trouble," the report concludes, in part because students are being taught by professors who are "increasingly stressed and dispirited." The report calls on medical educators to provide better mentoring and support, including medical referrals, for struggling faculty members.
The article is titled "The Impact of the Changing Health Care Environment on the Health and Well-Being of Faculty at Four Medical Schools."
You can access the article's abstract at http://www.academicmedicine.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/1/27
