We Need to Talk About It: Physician Burnout and Sex Differences in Salary

Physician burnout is a work related syndrome involving emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment. The prevalence of burnout has reached a shocking 50% in both staff and resident physicians! Something needs to be done. Ariel Lefkowitz, Chief Medical Resident at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, takes listeners through a systematic review and meta-analysis examining interventions to prevent and reduce physician burnout. If you, or someone you know, may be experiencing burnout see the links listed below for helpful resources.

Next, Kieran highlights a very important issue that permeates medicine, like all other industries, the gender gap. Listeners are taken through a retrospective analysis that aims to answer the following question: are there gender differences in salaries in medicine? Using a non-survey based methodology and adjusting for multiple variables including physician age, experience, faculty rank, specialty, and scientific authorship, the authors take a critical look at discrepancies in physician earning between the genders.

Finally, the Good Stuff segment! An ongoing challenge: how to combat stigma surrounding mental illness? Ariel describes technology aimed at putting people in the shoes of those suffering. Then, heard of the IBM supercomputer, Watson? Kieran describes a new application of Watson’s use: using artificial intelligence in the world of cancer precision medicine!

Have something to say on this episode? Join the conversation! Tweet @RoundsTable and @kieranlquinn. Contact Kieran by e-mail at kieran.quinn@mail.utoronto.ca.