64% of radiology residents report feeling burned out, with some intending to leave the field entirely
New survey results published in Academic Radiology highlight the issues residents face when it comes to burnout.
In the field of medicine, burnout could be considered a pandemic in its own right. Recently, a large Medscape survey revealed that 49% of radiologists report feeling burned out. As a whole, radiology professionals ranked seventh on the list, but other data has recently observed that burnout doesn’t just impact career radiologists—it affects the field’s residents as well.
An anonymous survey reports that 36.2% of radiology residents report feeling the impacts of burnout, which negatively affects both their career outlook and professional fulfillment, according to the data.
“Academic institutions bear the important responsibility of training the next generation of physicians to become healthcare practitioners and leaders, equipped with the expertise and emotional intelligence to provide quality, patient-centered healthcare,” corresponding author Mikhail Higgins, MD, from the department of radiology at Boston Medical Center, and co-authors wrote. “However, the training environment has also resulted in unanticipated adverse effects on the mental health and well-being of residents and fellows.”
To better understand how burnout impacts radiology residents, researchers put together a survey that could be answered anonymously and distributed it to radiology trainees at 11 different academic medical centers. The survey was intended to gauge the associations between burnout and professional fulfillment (PF), intent-to-leave (ITL) and sleep-related impairment, as well as the precursors that lead to residents feeling burned out.
In addition to finding a high prevalence of burnout among residents, the survey also found that the condition was leading to sleep-related impairments in 64.8% of respondents. Just 37.4% reported feeling professional fulfillment, and the effects of feeling burned out led 7.6% of the residents admitting their intent to leave the profession all together.
Those who reported feeling less professional fulfillment cited a lack of support from their peers and department leaders, as well as dissatisfaction with their schedules or difficulties with electronic health records systems that were deemed inefficient.
“To date, few studies have examined the degree or experience of burnout among radiology residents,” the authors wrote. “Given the mental health implications of burnout, including associations with depression and anxiety, access to mental health resources is also crucially important among burned out residents.”
The detailed survey results can be viewed in Academic Radiology.
More on physician burnout:
49% of radiologists surveyed say they’re burned out, with ‘lack of respect’ a top driver
'Worrisome trends': Burnout causing 36.9% of neuroradiologists to contemplate early retirement
Radiologist burnout: 5 key causes and possible solutions
Radiology leaders share 5 pearls of wisdom for navigating burnout
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She began covering the medical imaging industry for Innovate Healthcare in 2021.