Several reports have gone live in the first half of 2024 that give an insight into cardiologist employment, pay, burnout and coping mechanisms. Here are 35 of the top things to know:
Employment
Nationally, there are 16,870 cardiologists working with a mean annual wage of $421,330, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data compiled annual mean wage, employment numbers and location data for cardiologists as of May 2022, the most recent data. Here are five employment stats to know:
New York and California have the most employed cardiologists at 2,370 and 2,130, respectively.
Idaho is the highest-paying state for cardiologists at a mean annual wage of $521,690.
Nashville, Tenn., is the highest-paying metropolitan area at an annual mean wage of $495,220.
The majority of cardiologists work in offices of physicians (11,700) or general medical or surgical hospitals (4,070).
Pay
Offices of physicians are the highest-paying setting for cardiologists on average ($458,050); they earn more than $300,000 there than in the lowest-paying setting — colleges, universities and professional schools ($154,210).
Medicare reimbursements have fallen by 29% for cardiology between from 2005 to 2021, with even greater declines for cardiac surgery (-57.6%) and thoracic surgery (-41.5%), a recent study found.
A majority (53%) of cardiologists said they would take less pay for a better work-life balance.
Burnout
Burnout among cardiologists has risen by 2% since last year, with 66% reporting they have felt burned out for at least 13 months, compared to 64% in 2023. Seventeen percent of cardiologists reported that their burnout was so severe that they may leave medicine, and only 3% reported that burnout does not affect their life.
Cardiologists said the top contributors to burnout were too many bureaucratic tasks (69%), too many hours at work (43%) and a lack of respect from administrators/employers, colleagues or staff (40%).
Workplace measures cardiologists said what would help most with their burnout included adding support staff (49%), increasing physician control/autonomy (49%) and making work schedules more flexible (47%).
Coping and healthy lifestyle management
Cardiologists said they changed their work environment to reduce burnout with these popular methods (respondents could choose more than one answer): Spoke with hospital/group administration about productivity pressures (29%); Make workflow or staff changes to ease workload (24%); Reduced work hours (19%); Changed work settings/got a different job (19%).
Cardiologists also use coping mechanisms to handle burnout and work stress, including talking with family members and close friends (54%), exercise (52%) and playing or listening to music (34%).
Outside of work, here are some of the habits cardiologists keep:
- About 25% of cardiologists said their diet is "very healthy" while 59% said it was "somewhat healthy."
- About 58% of cardiologists exercise two to five times a week and 30% consume less than one alcoholic drink a week.
- Seventy percent of cardiologists said they take three to six weeks of vacation each year.