Societal Changes, COVID-19 Among Causes of Oncologist Burnout

When prompted about the increase in workplace burnout amongst oncologists, Eric P. Winer, MD, said some contributing factors may be societal changes, the COVID-19 pandemic, and administrative tasks.

CancerNetwork® spoke with Winer following the publication of a survey in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that found a 14% increase in oncology burnout from 2013 to 2023. The study found that being a caregiver in one’s personal life, working more than 60 hours a week, and being younger than 50 years of age were all associated with burnout (P <.05, respectively).

As for societal changes, Winer alluded to the fact that as more and more clinicians start to seek work-life balance, it may be important to realize that achieving such a thing may be more difficult in medicine. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic placed a great deal of stress upon medical professionals, and though it led workers to feel mission-driven, now many are dealing with fatigue.

Another large factor he mentioned was the increase in usage of technology and digital screens. Telehealth, for example, though it can be a great thing, puts a barrier between the doctor and the patient. There are also more and more oncologists who must help with tasks such as documentation or insurance authorizations, which many physicians never anticipated having to do.

Winer is the director of Yale Cancer Center, president and physician-in-chief at Smilow Cancer Hospital, deputy dean for Cancer Research and Alfred Gilman Professor of Pharmacology and Professor of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine, chair of the association board for the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and one of the authors on the survey.

Transcript:

There are a number of factors. One, since I referred to burnout, across the board and in society, some of this is a little bit of a societal issue, because you hear more and more people talking about burnout. You hear more people talking about wanting to achieve a work-life balance, and maybe that’s a little more difficult in medicine than in [other] places, which can lead to burnout. The COVID-19 pandemic was stressful. While on the one hand, early in the pandemic, everyone felt extraordinarily mission-driven, as if they were in a battleground, and that tends to bring people together, there’s fatigue associated with that. A lot of people felt that they couldn’t practice the way they would like to practice; they had to make decisions, particularly early on, about treatments that needed to be delayed or not given.

Although telehealth is a great thing when used properly, telehealth also puts a barrier between the doctor and the patient. I will confess to you that I don’t like telehealth. I’m willing to do it occasionally, but I like sitting face-to-face with a patient, and without that, it’s a different interaction. Finally, in the last 10 to 12 years, we’ve seen this proliferation of tasks that many physicians never thought they would have to do: excessive documentation, [spending] all this time in front of screens instead of in front of patients, and insurance authorizations. There are just a lot of pieces of our jobs that don’t feel like they’re mission-driven.

Reference

Schenkel C, Levit LA, Kirkwood K, et al. State of professional well-being, satisfaction, and career plans among US oncologists in 2023. J Clin Oncol. Published online January 29, 2025. doi:10.1200/OA.24.00010