I titled a recent post musing over my career as ‘The Thrill is Gone’. But I ended on an optimistic note:
‘The baton gets handed on. The thrill goes on. And on’
But there are good reasons to think otherwise. Below is a quote from a recent letter in the Lancet by Gagab Bhatnaga. You can argue all you like about definitions of ‘burnout’, but good young people are leaving medicine. The numbers who leave for ever may not be large but I think some of the best are going. What worries as much is those who stay behind.
The consequences of physician burnout have been clearly observed in the English National Health Service (NHS). F2 doctors (those who are in their second foundation year after medical school) can traditionally go on to apply to higher specialist training. Recent years have seen an astounding drop in F2 doctors willing to continue NHS training4 with just over a third (37·7%) of F2 doctors applying to continue training in 2018, a decrease from 71·3% in 2011. Those taking a career break from medicine increased almost 3-fold from 4·6% to 14·6%. With the NHS already 10 000 doctors short, the consequences of not recruiting and retaining our junior workforce will be devastating.