A recent study found physician work hours dropped by 7.6 percent in the last two decades, mostly due to a decrease among male physicians, especially fathers; however, work hours for mother physicians increased by 3 percent.
The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, compiled 87,297 monthly surveys from 17,599 unique households of physicians and advanced practice professionals between 2001 and 2021.
Here are five findings:
- The number of active physicians grew 32.9 percent from 2001 to 2021, peaking in 2018 at 989,684 before falling 6.7 percent by 2021.
- Average weekly work hours for individual physicians declined from 52.6 to 48.6 hours per week.
- The downward trend was driven by male physicians, particularly fathers, rural physicians and physicians aged 45 to 54 years.
- Physician mothers were the only subgroup to experience a statistically significant increase of work hours, at 3 percent.
- Advanced practice physicians contributed more weekly hours, which offset the lagging growth in the physician workforce.