Do physicians with academic affiliation have lower burnout and higher career-related satisfaction?

Abstract

Background: Physicians report increasing burnout and declining career-related satisfaction, negatively impacting physician well-being and patient care quality. For physicians with academic affiliations, these issues can directly affect future generations of physicians. Previous research on burnout and satisfaction has focused on factors like work hours, gender, race, specialty, and work setting. We seek to contribute to the literature by examining these associations while controlling for demographic, family, and work-related characteristics. Furthermore, we aim to determine any differential effects of faculty rank. Methods: We analyzed data on practicing physicians in the U.S. from the Association of American Medical College’s (AAMC) 2019 National Sample Survey of Physicians (NSSP,) which includes variables adapted from the Maslach Burnout Inventory. We used ordinal logistic regressions to explore associations between academic affiliation and burnout. We conducted a factor analysis to consolidate satisfaction measures, then examined their relationship with academic affiliation using multivariate linear regressions. All regression analyses controlled for physicians’ individual, family, and work characteristics. Results: Among respondents (n = 6,000), 40% were affiliated with academic institutions. Physicians with academic affiliations had lower odds than their non-affiliated peers for feeling emotional exhaustion every day (Odds Ratio [OR] 0.87; 95% CI: 0.79–0.96; P