(File photo/650 CKOM News)

By Libby Giesbrecht/650 CKOM News

Survey says more than half of physicians have experienced burnout

Mar 24, 2022 | 9:49 AM

The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) is reporting that more than half of the physicians in the country have experienced high levels of burnout.

According to the results of the survey, conducted last November, 53 per cent of physicians and medical learners reported burnout compared to 30 per cent in a similar survey conducted in 2017.

Between those two surveys, a two-year pandemic has battered medical professionals in Canada.

The survey also reports that nearly half of Canadian physicians who responded — about 46 per cent — are considering reducing their clinical work over the next two years.

Dr. Ann Collins, the past president of the CMA, said the “alarming” results come as no surprise to many physicians.

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Having recently returned to some clinical work herself, Collins said she can see the burnout in the faces of many of her colleagues.

“Concerned” and “fatigue” are two words she’d use to describe the effects.

Burnout, Collins said, is a serious condition with its own medical diagnosis.

“The burnout we’re talking about here is the result of system issues, system failures, in which physicians have been working for a long time,” she said.

It’s not something that can be fixed simply through resiliency training or long walks, though.

“If we are seeing physicians who are burned out and not able to work at the same capacity or are making a conscious decision to step away or to slow down their practices to look after their mental health as well, that will present a challenge,” Collins explained.

That’s why Collins said it is so important to be presenting this information now, as budget season is upon many provinces, to alert stakeholders they need to be involved in a solution.

The problems facing physicians and contributing to their plummet in mental health began long before COVID-19 was part of Canadian vernacular, Collins said.

Wait times prior to the pandemic were already extremely lengthy for certain procedures. There were staffing issues, trouble accessing diagnostic services and physicians struggling to meet the needs of their patient populations. Before long-term care homes had a spotlight on them for COVID-related health concerns, Canada’s aging population was already placing a high demand on the health system.

Then COVID hit. And many of those issues ground to a halt.

The pandemic added another layer of burden to health-care workers, with physicians caring for extremely sick patients that could not have the support of their loved ones at their bedsides. Each night, health-care workers worried they’d bring the virus home to their families — and many have done so throughout the pandemic, Collins said.

Now, the country faces a “burgeoning backlog” of surgeries and cancelled diagnostic tests, which can lead to more adverse prognoses for patients.

All these factors contribute to the growing number of physicians nearing their breaking point across Canada, Collins said.

As provinces like Saskatchewan make dramatic plans to try and tackle backlogs the health system is facing, the potential to see a shrinking physician population stands in the way.

“There are many things that we don’t know and that’s one of the calls we are making here,” Collins said.

More than 4,000 physicians nationally responded to the survey, a “significant” response, the CMA said in an email. About 3,000 responded to the 2017 survey.

Collins said it will take medical professionals and all levels of government to address the plethora of issues facing health-care professionals, developing policies and taking a “good hard look” at how to fix the system moving forward.

Canada doesn’t have a human resources plan, Collins said, so there is a gap in knowing how many physicians are doing what work in the country.

The solution won’t be a quick fix, given the long history behind the issues facing physicians now.

Questions like who is needed to help care for Canadians, what surgeons are required to clear surgical backlogs, where they need to be placed, and what other health-care workers are needed will have to be asked, Collins said.

Their calls to action are to develop a good way to collect data — necessary, Collins said, because “if you don’t have it, you don’t know what you need to do or what decisions you need to make” — and to develop an integrated health human resource plan at the national level.

Better support options for doctors to lean on each other across provinces by removing barriers and creating a pan-Canadian licensing model is also something physicians across the country would benefit from, Collins said.

“These are ways to improve our system so that physicians working in the system — and indeed all health-care workers working in the system — feel supported (and) feel valued moving forward,” she said.

She said the end goal to all of this, as always, is to provide good care for Canadians.