What Is Your Perspective As A Physician?

The Physicans Foundation conducted a survey of approximately 13,500 physicians. Its results were released on September 21, 2012. I strongly encourage you to read it for yourself here, but I’d like to highlight a few points. [i] Healthcare is currently in one of the most transformative eras in the history of modern healthcare and health reform. That being said, it is also a very challenging and uncertain time to be a doctor.

Did you know?

• 84% of physicians agree that the medical profession is in decline

• 78% of physicians are somewhat pessimistic or very pessimistic about the future of the medical profession

• 60% of physicians today would retire if they had the means

Even with this hopeless perspective that physicians hold about the future of healthcare, it’s amazing how difficult it is to get them to consider changing. Yesterday, I worked with a physician who works 80 hours every week. He, too, is experiencing difficulty in the way he practices his medicine to fix this problem. As difficult as the environment may be, we are not changing just for the sake of the patient, but also for the sake of the profession itself. Change is good for the health profession and for generations to follow.

Acknowledgements

[i] A survey of American’s physicians: Practice patterns and perspectives. The Physicians Foundation [online]. September 2012. Accessed October 17, 2012.