Sean Runnels MD,

What is making America’s doctors sick? That’s the question I found myself asking last night. I am at a clinical/scientific meeting this weekend and there are pre-programmed sections to discuss our practices and our personal lives, not just the patients we take care of. Last night physician after physician got up to the microphone and told stories of issues with major depressive disorder, substance use, anxiety, anger, and a host of concerning problems that impacted their professional and personal lives. Lost in the discussion of all of these eye-opening stories was the fact that these are all outward signs of an underlying problem. Unlike what we do every day in our practices, last night was all about discussing the “symptoms” but we never did a root cause analysis. So, what’s making America’s doctors sick? It’s a sick healthcare system on life support. It’s the requirement to be available every hour of every day in a never disconnected world. It’s the legislators continuing to cut pay year after year. It’s the administrators squeezing every profit possible leading to less control over our staff and our operating rooms. It’s the reduced support teams in order to provide returns to stockholders. It’s the loss of autonomy from physicians having no choice but to become employed or sell their practices. It’s the inability to choose the implants we want to use for surgery because they aren’t on contract or are too expensive. Our healthcare system is in multisystem organ failure right now. But just like a patient in the ICU, the knowledge of how to fix the problem lies with the physicians. We know where the problems are and we know how to get to the solutions. We need to go to roll up our sleeves and fix perhaps the most complicated patient we have ever taken care of…. The American healthcare system. Let’s go to our state and federal legislators and show them the problems and the solutions. Let’s engage our patients to tell the stories they are facing. Let’s work together as a team again. Let’s fight unfair practices in medicine that put the thumb on the scale in favor of large monopolies and marginalize physicians. Inflationary Updates for Physicians. Stark Laws. 340B. Site Neutrality. Prior Authorization. Physician Ownership of Hospitals. Medicare Advantage Reform. Workplace Violence. Noncompetes. Failed No Surprises Act Implementation. Join your PAC. Help your Association’s advocacy efforts. Meet your state and federal representatives. Engage with your patients. It’s time. Our voice is important and needed, but we can’t do it without everyone participating. The literal lives of our colleagues and our patients hang in the balance.