Burnout and Physician Gender: What Do We Know?

Abstract

Purpose: Burnout (BO) is a serious phenomenon affecting US physicians. Female physicians, now accounting for a larger share of the workforce, are thought to experience higher levels of BO in some situations compared with their male counterparts. The current review aimed to systematically examine extant literature on physician BO as it relates especially to the female physician.

Methods: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guided search of 4 databases yielding empirical studies with relevant findings regarding female physician BO, published during the time period 2010-2019.

Results: A total of 43 studies were included in the current review. Both male and female doctors have higher percentages of burned out doctors, with a third or more of each group indicating BO in each of the studies examined. These higher levels of BO remained regardless of where physicians worked, their clinical specialty, workloads, or age. However, the review supports the notion that for women doctors, there is generally a higher likelihood of experiencing BO compared with male doctors, particular with respect to the emotional exhaustion dimension of BO.

Conclusions: BO is important for both female and male physicians; although women doctors may experience it to a greater degree. Women doctors will benefit from talent management approaches by health care organizations that recognize their greater tendency to BO compared with men. These approaches should be aimed at ameliorating the factors that give rise to feelings of emotional exhaustion in particular. Additional research is needed to better understand the full extent to which physician gender plays a role in BO.