Respondents also expressed the more expected concerns with high medical care costs (62%) and high drug costs (55%). And 43% said they were worried about “nuclear malpractice verdicts” — that is, those verdicts reaching over $10 million.
But the shocker is that, overall, TDC found 77% of physicians reporting “decreased career enjoyment,” and “only 12% of physicians recommending medicine as a career to others” — a percentage that downslides by generation, from Baby Boomer (18%) to Gen X (11%) to Millennial (8%).
Since COVID there have been other downbeat physician satisfaction surveys —
a 2023 AMA survey , for example, found that, if they had the chance to do it all over, 43% of physicians were either unsure they would choose medicine or definitely would not, up from 28% in 2020. But this TDC survey seems to find a new low.
“The many factors being discussed and evaluated in the current conversation are not mutually exclusive or independent, but should serve as a guide to understanding the needs of healthcare organizations and professional administrators as they address the shifting paradigm, and in the process, help ensure a satisfied workforce,” says Richard F. Cahill, vice president and associate general counsel of The Doctors Company in Napa, Calif.
Among other solutions, Cahill expects medical organization to seek to “solve escalating cost-control challenges by utilizing evolved AI technologies, and create a meaningful ongoing dialogue among the various stakeholders to help ensure optimum patient engagement and critical continuity of care of mutual benefit to the many affected communities.”