The Truth about Physician Burnout: A National Crisis

Physicians are not “burning out”.
Physicians are being “driven out.”
Call this crisis what it is… Abuse.

Try telling an emotionally abused spouse that they need “mindfulness training”.
You’ll get a mouthful of mindful.

Offer deep breathing classes to treat your toxic workplace.
Employees will hold their breath to leave.

Abuse cannot be treated with yoga.

The 400 physician suicides each year are not from weakness within physicians. The brightest and best are being poisoned by an “industry” that abuses them.

Calling this crisis “Burnout” is only a convenient way for the “industry” to deny its role in the destruction of a noble profession.

“Healthcare does not need to change, it’s these physicians that need to change,” says the Chief Innovation Officer. “They just need to accept their new role as pawns.”

The unsustainable cost of healthcare and the shortage of physicians is both the result of the corporatization of healthcare.
You are paying for administrators, mid-managers, and stockholders, not for doctors and nurses.

The conversion of the hard-earned title “physician” into a replaceable unit known as a “provider” has depersonalized and disempowered physicians.

This title change enabled corporations to take over healthcare, which has raised costs while dehumanizing its greatest resource.
The loss of physician joy has reduced the quality of those willing to sacrifice their youth to become a “provider”.

A “provider” is a replaceable unit.
A “physician” is a lifetime commitment.

Healthcare is no longer an art, a ministry, or a science.
“It’s just business.”

That is what is killing us.

Physicians are the money-printing machines for hospitals and insurance companies.
A physician’s value is determined by the number of their covered lives, not by the quality or satisfaction in those lives.
Don’t be fooled by Value-Based care.
It’s a fee-for-service wolf hidden inside corporate clothing.

Look at the surge in Wall Street IPOs. See the reasons CVS, Walgreens, and Google want to own physicians.

“We will control your cost,” says the CEO.
That’s BS. Their job is to raise costs and their stock price.

Physicians don’t need more mindfulness.

We need the same thing that our patients need… more Truth.

Amazing post by Guy Culpepper the CEO at Jefferson Physician Group, I had to share it.