W105 - Confidential Care to Support Physician Health and Wellness

Session Description: Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, physician burnout, depression and suicide already were major challenges for the U.S. health care system, impacting nearly every aspect of clinical care. Recent studies show a national burnout rate increased over the past five years from 42 to 53 percent among physicians in practice, including private practice, academic medical centers, outpatient clinics, and many other clinical settings. More than 40 percent of physicians do not seek help for burnout or depression for fear of disclosing on a future application and the associated stigma.

Physicians are among the most resilient, and yet the environments in which physicians work drive these high levels of burnout. The majority of burnout is driven by systems factors and thus, the majority of, solutions are at the system level. Physicians say they don’t seek help for suicidal thoughts because of fear of judgment from colleagues or that they should be able to handle the stress.

Compounding the problems are medical licensing applications, employment and credentialing applications, and professional liability insurance applications. The problem is that these may include problematic and potentially illegal questions requiring disclosure whether a potential licensee or applicant has ever been diagnosed with a mental illness or substance use disorder (SUD) or even sought counseling for a mental illness.