Canadian ER doctors cutting hours, leaving specialty due to burnout: study

An ongoing study says emergency room doctors are burnt out, and it’s having an impact on retention.

The co-author of an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, who is also an emergency room doctor, says things may improve because of government spending.

“There are some days when I come to work, and I really have to do my best to put on my strongest face,” said Dr. Somaiah Ahmed, the chief of emergency medicine at Brantford General Hospital.

Ahmed is the chief of emergency medicine at the Brantford General Hospital and she says it’s important to talk about burnout when it comes to ER doctors and people in the healthcare industry.

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“It’s our reality day-to-day — it’s not like every day someone is in burnout, but we all go through waves,” said Ahmed. “The challenges and the reality of emergency medicine as is our challenges — they’re difficult. You never know what you’re going to get when you show up to work each day. The pressures have been building, our volumes have been building, our acuity has been building — the pandemic left our system not the same, and uncovered all of our weaknesses.”

The Canadian Medical Journal recently released the findings of a study about ER burnout.

Just over 400 ER doctors were surveyed and the report finds many have reduced their work hours because of burnout.

Dr. Teresa Chan, a Canadian emergency room physician and medical educator at McMaster University, is one of the co-authors in the study.

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“The reality is, is that as emergency physicians, we are there to serve people when they need us the most, but as a result, we can’t predict what our schedule is going to be like,” said Chan. “I don’t know if someone is going to come in and unexpectedly get really sick as I’m trying to head out the door, and so it is one of those things where we can’t plan for that. That is part of the reason why I think our speciality might be a little pronounced, prone to a little bit more of that burnout.”

While the study also says 10 per cent of emergency room doctors have left the profession, Chan is optimistic.

“I think that our government is already investing so much in healthcare, and I think that the trajectory that they’ve taken recently around really investing in primary care is, in the long run, a solution and an investment that we need to make,” said Chan. “The more people we can prevent from having that heart attack, that stroke, the more people that we can keep from having to come to the emergency department, because they have great access to amazing primary care, whether it’s a nurse practitioner or a midwife, or a family doctor, depending on what your needs are. I think that’s really important.”

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