Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Behind the 8-Ball

Due, in part, to their compassionate nature and dedication to their patients, MDs, NPs, and other overworked healthcare professionals have found themselves in an impossible position, with few options for relief.

From Nurse Keith’s Digital Doorway

On June 8, 2019, an excellent article was published in the New York Times that clearly stated something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time. The article was titled, “The Business of Health Care Depends on Exploiting Doctors and Nurses“, and the subtitle was “One resource seems infinite and free: the professionalism of caregivers“. It was written by Dr. Danielle Ofri, a physician at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.

The article outlines the ways in which healthcare providers are exploited for their compassion and dedication to patients in terms of being asked to see more patients and do more work than is humanly possible without any additional remuneration or compensation. While the writer focused on MDs and NPs, in my opinion this is an across-the-board cancer eating away at the quality of our healthcare system and the mental health and well-being of our providers.

This disturbing trend is apparent in the lives of so many nurse practitioners I’ve encountered, including dear friends, colleagues, and career coaching clients, and is especially apparent in those who work in primary care. The complaints I hear often concern NPs being forced to see dozens of complicated patients per day with only 15 minutes allotted per visit. With sicker patients, complex comorbities, and other factors that make care more time-consuming and complicated, our frontline medical providers are put in an impossible situation with only one certain outcome: provider burnout and the compromising of patient care.

Ethics, Practice, and the Hard Reality

The aforementioned New York Times article begins thus:

You are at your daughter’s recital and you get a call that your elderly patient’s son needs to talk to you urgently. A colleague has a family emergency and the hospital needs you to work a double shift. Your patient’s M.R.I. isn’t covered and the only option is for you to call the insurance company and argue it out. You’re only allotted 15 minutes for a visit, but your patient’s medical needs require 45.

These quandaries are standard issue for doctors and nurses. Luckily, the response is usually standard issue as well: An overwhelming majority do the right thing for their patients, even at a high personal cost.

We healthcare providers are ethical creatures by dint of our education and perhaps our human nature as individuals given to caregiving. The medical or nursing oaths we take are to do harm and provide the best possible care for those patients in our charge; so, in the words of Dr. Ofri:

If doctors and nurses clocked out when their paid hours were finished, the effect on patients would be calamitous. Doctors and nurses know this, which is why they don’t shirk. The system knows it, too, and takes advantage.

The reality of medical and nursing care is far beyond what the corporate bean counters will acknowledge. When healthcare is corporatized to such an egregious level based on nothing but the financial bottom line, productivity becomes the keystone of every aspect of patient care, not to mention so-called “patient satisfaction”.

But what happens when providers are so burned out that they cannot provide the care they’re ethically bound to deliver? What about provider satisfaction? Do those watching the flow of money care that approximately 400 American physicians commit suicide per year? We don’t have accurate data on the number of nurse suicides, but we readily assume that this is an issue facing nurses and APRNs as well. How far does this calculation need to go before we notice and actually do something about it?

As Dr. Ofri points out, the EMR has revolutionized healthcare and few of us would voluntarily choose to revert to paper charts. However, the dark side of the EMR is that we can be forced to work from home because we now have 24/7 access to patient records.

In fact, per a recent article in the Annals of Family Medicine, for every hour of direct physician-based patient care (or APRN-driven care, I may add), two hours are needed for accurate documentations in an EMR. So where do those 15 minutes figure in this dastardly and cynical calculation of how long it takes to perform and document high-quality patient care? In fact, those 15 minutes mean nothing in the scheme of things because precious few visits actually take only that amount of time.

Stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue in medical providers and nurses inevitably leads to stress-related illness, provider attrition, suicide, and other negative outcomes. With a shortage of primary care physicians and nurses in many areas of the country — especially where vulnerable populations are concerned — we cannot afford such a hemorrhage of talent and skill. In fact, it’s killing us.

Would Other Professionals Put Up With It?

If construction workers (who, by the way, experience far fewer on-the-job injuries than nurses due to strictly held safety standards) were asked to work three hours of unpaid overtime a night in order to document their work, what would they say and do? They’d probably tell you to stick your documentation where the sun doesn’t shine and then go on strike against their employer for unfair labor practices.

The New York Times article illustrates it thus:

In a factory, if 30 percent more items were suddenly dropped onto an assembly line, the process would grind to a halt. Imagine a plumber or a lawyer doing 30 percent more work without billing for it. But in health care there is a wondrous elasticity — you can keep adding work and magically it all somehow gets done. The nurse won’t take a lunch break if the ward is short of staff members. The doctor will “squeeze in” the extra patients.

For doctors, nurse practitioners, midwives, nurses, and others in the healthcare ecosystem, we continually show up, do our best, work hours after we’re no longer paid, and otherwise sacrifice ourselves on the altar of patient care because patient abandonment is serious and we would never put our patients at risk because we feel overworked, even though the reality is that our patients are indeed at risk exactly because of the workloads we silently accept.

How many other professions do something similar? Perhaps teachers, who spend enormous amounts of their own money (despite comparatively low pay) on classroom supplies since school systems in the U.S. provide precious little for them to work with in order to provide high-quality educational experiences for the students who they’re ethically bound to educate.

Medical providers save lives, keep patients on track, treat both acute and chronic diseases, perform surgeries, and contribute enormously to the greater public good. While pop stars and sports figures earn multi-million dollar salaries for entertaining us (an important societal role, of course), those who put their own mental and physical health on the line to save and heal others are expected to do the impossible day in and day out for comparatively little compensation. In my book, the musicians and athletes should trade salaries with medical providers, but we know that will never happen. And when an athlete has to play an extra game or match without compensation, we’d see how long that would last before a revolution took place.

Solutions Must Exist

At face value, this situation seems untenable and intractable. The corporatization of healthcare will continue apace, more and more will be demanded of our NPs, RNs, and MDs, and we’ll continue to lose good people.

The notion of the “triple bottom line” is one concept that more healthcare institutions could adopt, and that means taking into consideration people, planet, and profits. While this may be anathema to those who watch the healthcare money flow, this is one way to humanize the way we deal with such a highly valuable workforce.

And while hospitals focus so terribly much on patient satisfaction scores in order to secure Medicare reimbursement, whatever happened to provider and employee satisfaction? Doesn’t the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) understand that burned-out nurses, NPs, surgeons, and physicians actually contribute to worse patient satisfaction? And what if employee satisfaction scores impacted Medicare reimbursement? How the accountants and executives might scramble to keep those providers happy.

This overly corporatized healthcare infrastructure is strangling the system and hobbling good clinicians who can’t take the strain. Yes, we can bill, bill, bill for those reimbursements, but when that final “bill” arrives and we realize that outcomes are plummeting and our employees are being driven away, perhaps then we’ll see the light and begin to brainstorm solutions.

The New York Times article concludes:

The health care system needs to be restructured to reflect the realities of patient care. From 1975 to 2010, the number of health care administrators increased 3,200 percent. There are now roughly 10 administrators for every doctor. If we converted even half of those salary lines to additional nurses and doctors, we might have enough clinical staff members to handle the work. Health care is about taking care of patients, not paperwork.

Those at the top need to think about the ramifications of their decisions. Counting on nurses and doctors to suck it up because you know they won’t walk away from their patients is not just bad strategy. It’s bad medicine.


Keith Carlson, RN, BSN, NC-BC, is the Board Certified Nurse Coach behind NurseKeith.com and the well-known nursing blog, Digital Doorway. Please visit his online platforms and reach out for his support when you need it most.

Keith is the host of The Nurse Keith Show, his solo podcast focused on career advice and inspiration for nurses. From 2012 until its sunset in 2017, Keith co-hosted RNFMRadio, a groundbreaking nursing podcast.

A widely published nurse writer, Keith is the author of Savvy Networking For Nurses: Getting Connected and Staying Connected in the 21st Century and Aspire to be Inspired: Creating a Nursing Career That Matters. He has contributed chapters to a number of books related to the nursing profession. Keith has written for Nurse.com, Nurse.org, MultiBriefs News Service, LPNtoBSNOnline, StaffGarden, AUSMed, American Sentinel University, Black Doctor, Diabetes Lifestyle, the ANA blog, NursingCE.com, American Nurse Today, Working Nurse Magazine, and other online and print publications.

Mr. Carlson brings a plethora of experience as a nurse thought leader, keynote speaker, online nurse personality, social media influencer, podcaster, holistic career coach, writer, and well-known nurse entrepreneur. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his lovely and talented wife, Mary Rives, and his adorable and remarkably intelligent cat, George.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Kick Off Your 2020 Job Search with These Awesome NP, PA Jobs

If your New Year’s resolution is to find a new job, take a look at this list of awesome NP and PA openings we compiled to get you started.

The ball has dropped and 2020 is here and, if you are like scores of others, the new year brings with it the resolution to find a new job. Perhaps you have stagnated in your current role, or you are seeking a position with higher pay or a more flexible schedule, or maybe this is the year you want to really mix things up and dive into travel assignments. Whatever the reason you are pursuing a change, we are behind you. Ready your résumé and take a look at some of the excellent opportunities available on our site to start your 2020 job search strong.

Nurse Practitioner Openings:

Don’t see what you’re looking for? Click here to see thousands of available NP jobs.

Physician Assistant Openings:

Not the exact right fit? See thousands of other openings for PAs by clicking here.

Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant Openings:

Don’t see your dream job? Click here to see all available jobs on our site.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Our Top 5 Advanced Practice Articles of 2019

As the year comes to a close, we thought it would be a good time to take a look back on our most popular advanced practice articles of 2019. Read them here.

As 2019 comes to a close, we thought it would be a good time to look back at our most popular articles of 2019. Given they all racked up a good amount of views, there’s a chance you might’ve seen some of them before. However, take a look at the list below for our top five most popular blogs, in case you missed some of these great reads the first time around.

1. How Much PAs and NPs Make in Every State


How much do PAs and NPs make across the U.S.? We found out. How does your salary stack up against the average?
Read More →

2. How to Cope When You Hate Your Job


Working in healthcare is just plain hard. So, how do you cope if and when your passion for it seems gone? Here are some things to try.
Read More →

3. Yet Another Physician Speaks Out Against PAs, NPs


As the physician shortage worsens, there is no shortage of physicians speaking out against the idea of PAs and NPs being comparable substitutes.
Read More →

4. Female PAs Still Paid Less than Male PAs


Female PAs earn $.91 to every dollar male PAs earn according to the newly released findings from the AAPA’s annual salary survey.
Read More →

5. 5 Reasons to Give Travel Positions a Try


For those with a sense of adventure, travel positions need no other selling point. If you don’t have a natural love of travel, though, here are five other reasons to consider travel assignments.
Read More →

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

On Call on Christmas? Here’s How to Cope.

If you celebrate Christmas and find yourself on the schedule, here are four ways to cope with being on call during the holiday.

If you work in the medical field, particularly in a hospital setting, having to work on Christmas is not out of the question. While a lot of private practices and clinics will close their doors for the holiday, hospitals do not have holiday hours. After all, illnesses and injuries strike indiscriminately, and they do not have a habit of checking the calendar before they do.

Though many who work during the Christmas holiday may be of a religion that does not celebrate it, or those who haven’t a family to celebrate with, if you do celebrate and find yourself on the schedule, here are four ways to cope with being on call for Christmas.

Remember the Reason for the Season

To many, the reason for the season is found in the importance of giving. From the presents tucked under the tree to the time spent with loved ones, giving is woven throughout the Christmas holiday. By working on Christmas, you are giving, as well. Not only to the patients you are treating, but also to your coworkers who you are “taking one for the team” for by allowing them to spend the holiday outside of the hospital. That surely makes you feel just a little merry.

Reschedule the Holiday

No one says you absolutely, without question, have to celebrate Christmas when everyone else does. Make your own traditions for the years you end up on call—celebrate Christmas Eve on the Eve of the Eve, open presents the day after Christmas. Your family is already likely used to being flexible, given your career, and they will be just as thrilled to celebrate with you a day early, or a day late, as they would be to celebrate with you right on time.

Give Yourself Something To Look Forward To

If you are on the schedule for Christmas, there is a fairly high probability that you will not have to work on other big holidays, such as New Year’s Eve or Valentine’s Day. Give yourself (and/or your likely very understanding spouse, if you have one) something to look forward to and make plans for the days you won’t have to work. The gratification may not be instantaneous, but it may boost your spirits just enough to get you through your shift.

Celebrate with Your Work “Family”

It takes a lot of people to staff a hospital, even on a holiday. Those people are in the same position as you, and all of you can find some comfort in that. Spread a little cheer by celebrating together with a potluck, catered meal, or Secret Santa type of gift exchange. Even if Christmas isn’t your holiday, a good meal or a fun gift can go a long way to get you through a shift.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

10 Things to Put on Your Holiday Wish List as a PA or NP

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa—no matter what you celebrate this holiday season, here is a list of ten awesome items to put on your wish list as a PA or NP.

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa—no matter what you celebrate this holiday season, here is a list of ten awesome items to put on your wish list as a PA or NP. From ultra-practical shoes to adorable bandage badge reels, there is something for everyone.

3M Littmann Classic III Monitoring Stethoscope
Easily one of the most trusted tools you can have in your arsenal.
Rating: 4.7 out of 5
Promising Review: “On the recommendation of a Doc that I work with, I ordered this stethoscope and WOW!! I’m so impressed with the Classic III’s acoustic sensitivity. I get the clearest heart, lung and bowel sounds without any of the light vs firm pressure nonsense of the Lightweight S.E.”

CHEROKEE Infinity Mid Rise Tapered Leg Jogger Pant
Is there anything better than a super comfortable pair of scrubs? We don’t think so.
Rating: 4.4 out of 5
Promising Review: “IN LOVE with these jogger scrubs. They are very comfortable and I love the material. Nothing sticks to it (including my dog’s hair). I’ve gotten so many compliments with these scrubs.”

Before Patients, After Patients 11 oz Coffee Mug and 15 oz Stemless Wine Glass Set
Because patients. Fuel up and wind down with this mug and wine glass combo.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Promising Review: “A bit of humor a whole lot of truth. I am a retired RN and I certainly would have loved receiving this as a gift.”

Ninja Hot and Cold Brewed System, Auto-iQ Tea and Coffee Maker
So you’ll have something to put in your “Before Patients” mug.
Rating: 4.6 out of 5
Promising Review: “I love this machine so much! It is easy to use; looks nice sitting on my counter; and makes a great cup of coffee. I like that I can easily make a large pot of coffee or just one cup. Plus I can make almost any type of coffee there is!”

PhoneSoap 3 UV Smartphone Sanitizer & Universal Charger
Because germs are everywhere when you work in healthcare.
Rating: 4.4 out of 5
Promising Review: “Bought this along with a set of agar plates to test it for ourselves. We swabbed my daughter’s and husband’s phones before and after use. It does work. We are very happy with the product.”

Bandage Badge Reel
I mean, come on. Could they get any cuter?
Rating: 4.7 out of 5
Promising Review: “These are SO CUTE and my patients absolutely love them. My co-workers love them too. 10/10 recommend to anyone.”

A Simpler Time Nurse Practitioner Wood Sign with Personalized Nameboard
Perfect for any NP run practice.
Rating: 4.7 out of 5
Promising Review: “The MOST beautiful piece of work! The name is not only printed, but etched into the wood. The subtle elegant details are breathtaking. The way that the sign looks incredibly professional, yet shows a little humor, is a perfect compliment in our office. I cannot recommend this piece enough!”

The One-Minute Gratitude Journal
Cultivate an attitude of gratitude in just one minute a day.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Promising Review: “Absolutely love this. It is simple and straightforward, with the same prompt for each day. It allows you to write in the day & date of each entry and also has blank pages for brain dumping or doodling. Highly recommend this to anyone who seeks gratitude for the little and big things alike.”

Dansko Women’s Professional Mule
Comfortable and durable shoes are an absolute must-have.
Rating: 4.3 out of 5
Promising Review: “I have resisted the traditional “nurse shoe” for a long time, but I have come to realize there is a reason so many of my nurse and physician cohorts have chosen this shoe. Time (and body fluids) will tell how well they hold up. Just wearing them around the house, I can feel a definite difference in support. The platform will take a little getting used to.”

My Quotable Patients – The Funniest Things Patients Say: A Journal
Hopefully, one day, you’ll look back on every hilarious thing a patient has said and smile.
Rating: 4.8 out of 5
Promising Review: “Bought as a gift for my husband’s cousin who graduated nursing school. I think this is a super cute book for those memorable patients who are the reason why they chose to go in this career.”

Please note: HealthJobsNationwide.com receives no compensation for recommending these items and makes no warranties regarding their safety. Items listed above should be evaluated individually for potential risks and hazards.

This Year, Advanced Practitioners Are Thankful For…

We asked and you answered: what has your career in healthcare made you most thankful for? Here are ten of our favorite responses.

We asked and you answered: what has your career in healthcare made you most thankful for? We received a lot of great responses—some heartwarming, some hilarious, all valid reasons to be grateful—and we picked our top ten favorite answers to feature this week. Here they are.

This job isn’t always easy, but to know that I have been able to change lives for the better will always be something I will be thankful for. —Valerie P.

* * *

I am grateful for my colleagues for keeping me sane and constantly pushing me to do better. —Erika B.

* * *

I am proud to be an NP and help change and shape what healthcare looks like in my community and across the country. I’m definitely grateful for that. —Ariel L.

* * *

I’m continually learning in my job and I’m thankful for that. It’s never boring and it always keeps me on my toes. —Katherine H.

* * *

This year and every year, I am grateful to do what I love, alongside people I respect and admire, and that I get to enjoy every day at my job, even the hard ones. —Courtney K.

* * *

My job is never boring and I’m grateful for that. Even if it seems like it would be nice to be bored sometimes. It sure beats the alternative. —Coral C.

* * *

I’m grateful for the bonds I’ve been able to form with the people I work with and my longtime patients. —Michael R.

* * *

I’ve seen patients in some truly bad spots in life. I’m grateful to have been able to help them go on to lead better, healthier lives. That’s rewarding as hell. —Paula P.

* * *

I took on my first travel assignment this year and I’m so thankful I did. What a blessing that has been. So glad I chose a profession that lets me do this. —Jordan C.

* * *

Let’s be honest here: I’m thankful for my salary. —Jamie P.

* * *

No matter what you are thankful for this year, we are thankful for you and all you do. Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Happy NP Week! Here Are 4 Ways to Celebrate.

National Nurse Practitioner Week is a time for gratitude, advocacy, and celebration. Here are four ways to mark the occasion as an NP.

More than 50 years ago, the nation’s first Nurse Practitioners set out to begin training at the University of Colorado. Today, there are more than 270,000 NPs providing exceptional care in the United States, across all settings and specialties. This is the week—National Nurse Practitioner Week—that they are recognized.

National Nurse Practitioner Week, as it was proclaimed by the U.S. Congress back in 1994, is celebrated annually during the second week of November. It is a time for gratitude, advocacy, and celebration. Here are four ways to mark the occasion as an NP.

Thank Your Fellow NPs

Even the smallest act of kindness—a simple “thank you”—can go a long way in an oftentimes grueling profession. Celebrate this week by thanking those who work alongside you with a simple note, words of gratitude, or a small gesture, such a picking up coffee or lunch.

Spread the Word

Raise awareness for the NP profession by using the hashtags #NPWeek and #WeChooseNPs on social media while you celebrate your profession and peers. Use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more to give the public an idea of all being an NP entails by doing a day-in-the-life series of posts, or hold a public forum of sorts to answer questions about the profession.

Advocate for Your Profession

Participate in grassroots outreach to your state and local authorities and legislators to make them more aware of the significance of your profession and how your work impacts the community by inviting them to meet with you and tour your practice. Or visit the AANP’s Advocacy Center to learn more about advocating for NPs on a local and national level.

Treat Yourself

If you do nothing else this week, celebrate yourself. Set aside some time for a little extra self-care, and indulge in a good meal, a hot bath, a fulfilling workout, or a treat you’ve been eyeing. After all, you’ve earned it.

No matter how you celebrate this NP Week, know that all of us at HealthJobsNationwide.com are celebrating with you and we are so thankful for all you do to improve the health of our nation, not only this week, but throughout the year.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Can Nurses Fix the U.S. Healthcare System? Americans Seem to Think So.

Nurses are most trusted by Americans to fix the country’s healthcare system, according to the results of a new survey on health reform.

Being a nurse comes with a significant amount of responsibilities—right down to those that may very well mean life or death—and now it seems as though nurses are charged with another: fixing the U.S. healthcare system.

According to a recent survey on health reform conducted by The New York Times, the Commonwealth Fund, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, nurses are the healthcare stakeholders Americans trust most to improve the United States’ healthcare system, one which 64% of those polled rated as currently being fair or poor.

Nurses, which 58% of respondents indicated they have “a great deal” of trust in to improve the U.S. healthcare system, outranked doctors (30%), hospitals (18%), labor unions (14%), state (6%) and federal governments (6%), and Congress (5%). Health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies elicited the least amount of public trust when it comes to healthcare reform, with both receiving only 4% of the votes.

To view the full results of the survey, click here.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Unsurprising News of the Week: Another Doc Is Against Full Practice Authority

Another week, another physician calling into question the ability of advanced practitioners to treat patients as the primary care shortage looms.

“Nurse Practitioners Can’t Do What Primary Care Docs Can Do” reads the headline of an MD-penned op-ed published this month by Managed Care Magazine.

The piece, written by Alan Adler, MD, a recently retired senior medical director for utilization management and precertification at Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia, begins by setting forth three patient cases he had encountered: a 72-year-old man exhibiting concentration and memory issues, who Adler was able to diagnose with a large meningioma; a 50-year-old male who was experiencing loose stools, which Adler tied to a sugar-free candy habit after myriad GI testing; a man with an irregular heart rhythm, who had been suffering from fatigue and dizziness, who Adler had been able to help by identifying it was a case polypharmacy.

Adler then goes on to say the cases are “the intensely satisfying, salient episodes of intuition informed by our long hours of medical training,” before bringing up Nurse Practitioners and their quest for full practice authority in the face of the ballooning primary care physician shortage.

“[W]ould a nurse practitioner have recognized, diagnosed, and addressed the issues in the three cases I have just described? Are they comfortable delving into complex polypharmacy issues and stopping medications prescribed by physicians? Can they recognize Wencke-bach and its importance on an ECG in the office? I would argue probably not,” Adler debates in the piece, calling into question the ability of NPs to practice independent of physicians.

It is certainly clear that Adler, like many other physicians who have penned similar op-eds in recent months, opposes NPs as a viable solution to the physician shortage. However, like many others who have voiced their opposition, he falls short of offering an alternative, concluding his piece by calling for a model of care that has already been implemented across America and is proving to fall short of solving the problem: “I am not against new models of primary care. A primary care physician overseeing several nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants is an excellent way of increasing access to care without sacrificing quality.”

How do you feel about the op-ed and the constant opposition NPs and PAs face from physicians? Tell us below, or submit an op-ed of your own here.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Burnout Isn’t Just a Physician Problem

NPs and PAs are often touted as the solution to the growing primary care physician shortage, but at what cost? Burnout impacts them, too.

The growing primary care physician shortage has put an overwhelming strain on doctors in the United States, often in the form of burnout. A combined workforce of nearly 400,000 strong, Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants have been poised and ready to be, and often touted as, the most viable solution to the shortage. But at what cost? After all, NPs and PAs are not immune to burning out, themselves.

According to the International Classification of Diseases, which now classifies burnout as an occupational phenomenon, burnout is defined as “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” Those suffering from burnout often experience feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy.

Last fall, the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants published the first report on national trends of burnout among PAs. The data revealed that 62.1% of PAs had enthusiasm for their work, while 21.4% reported some degree of cynicism, and 10.4% reported a low sense of personal accomplishment. The report also revealed that 12.8% had never left a position due to stress, but were considering quitting their current position due to stress, burnout, or a toxic workplace, and that 30% had quit once in the past due to stress. Another 11.7% of PAs had left more than one position due to burnout.

As for Nurse Practitioners, burnout in the nursing profession, as a whole, is well-documented. Nurses experience some of the highest risk and rate of burnout, with a third of all nurses in the U.S. reporting high levels of emotional exhaustion. Though Nurse Practitioners may outrank RNs, they seem to be experiencing similar levels of burnout. For instance, though the NP profession ranked #7 on U.S. News & World Report’s 100 Best Jobs list in 2019, it was also reported that NP experience above average stress and below average work-life balance.

Are you feeling burnt out in your role as an NP or PA? How do you combat work-related stress? Tell us in the comments below.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.