Thursday, May 06, 2010

How happy are hospitalists? Lessons from the Today's Hospitalist career satisfaction survey

Hospitalists like their work but there can be too much of a good thing, and that gets old after a while. That's my take on the survey results. Although 75.3% were “extremely satisfied” working as a hospitalist, 68.8% thought burnout was a “very significant” or “significant” issue for them personally, 79.3% thought it was for their colleagues and 86.7% thought it was for the specialty overall. 30.3% said they didn't want or weren't sure they wanted to make hospital medicine a career. Most who plan to leave hospital medicine are waiting on a fellowship.

The results are presented here along with some thoughtful and creative ideas from a few programs around the country to help improve retention. I observed nothing at HM 2010 to allay my long held concern that SHM is not doing enough to address this problem.

No comments: