After 2+ Years Mired in a Pandemic, Primary Care Is Battered and Bruised. How Are You Doing?

If survey results just published by Patient Care are any indication, these are unprecedented days for primary care medicine—and not in a good way. Staff shortages are colliding with a deluge of new patient requests, resulting not only in high levels of burnout but also an alarmingly high percentage of providers questioning their own futures in the field. Much of the sudden downturn is being attributed to the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a small sample size, but out of 847 clinicians who responded to the survey, 62% said they have personal knowledge of other clinicians who retired early or quit during the pandemic. Another 25% say they themselves expect to leave primary care within the next 3 years. Interestingly, 29% claimed to have personal knowledge of practices that have closed. JUCM picked up on the risk of burnout in relation to the pandemic some time ago. You can read The Covid-19 Pandemic Is Making Burnout Worse for Physicians Already in Crisis in our archive right now.