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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023
| Contributor Information
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Medical students showed higher levels of concern than they did in last year's report about job stress, financial worries, and work-life balance among other issues. Meanwhile, burnout is a constant threat; half the medical students surveyed this year said that they constantly or frequently feel burned out.
In this report, gender is based on how physicians self-identified in our survey.
Some totals in this presentation do not equal 100% because of rounding.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Yash Shah's reasons for pursuing a medical career are similar to those expressed by the majority of survey respondents. The third-year med student at Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia cites service to others as one of his top motivations, followed closely by lifelong learning and having challenging cases to solve.
"As a student, I continue to draw motivation as I find that medicine is in need of constant improvement; I hope to contribute my own skills and ideas to this collective journey."
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Sujay Ratna, a second-year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, says working at a medical imaging startup before attending medical school sparked his interest in innovation and connecting patients to the newest devices.
About three-quarters of the medical students in the survey had already chosen their specialty. Three of the top five specialty choices (family medicine, pediatrics, and ob/gyn) were in primary care. And despite national and industry fears that emergency medicine and ob/gyn might be less popular this year in the residency matching program, the specialties remained among students' leading picks.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Having a personal interest in the specialty was more than three times as often the biggest factor to students when choosing a specialty than were lifestyle considerations.
Female students were more likely (75%) to cite a personal interest in the field than were their male counterparts (61%), whereas the latter more often (25%) cited lifestyle as their top factor compared with their female peers (14%).
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Income was a top priority for medical students, even more so for men (83% said it was very important or important) than for women (70%).
"With the debt I am accruing, future earning potential is a strong consideration," Ratna says. "However, it was not the biggest factor in choosing my eventual career path."
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Ratna, who is vice president of membership for the American Medical Student Association, explains that he paid for his first year of med school with earnings from a gap year job. He expects to have about $200,000 in debt when he graduates.
His debt would be in the lower half of medical students surveyed. Similar to past years' reports, the largest group of surveyed medical students predicted they'd finish med school with more than $300,000 in debt.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Shah says it's important for doctors to keep up with the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and medical devices and "ensure they are implemented in a safe, patient-centered manner." In other words, he explains, "as technology and business interests in medicine expand, physicians play a vital role in safeguarding the human side of medicine."
Ratna says he took a student-run AI in medicine course at his school, but he hasn't formally learned about the business of medicine. "Physicians I shadow will casually mention private vs public hospitals, community vs academic, and wage differences in NYC vs rural areas."
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Ratna points to his school's courses on the impacts of health inequities. Ninety-six percent of survey respondents said that they learned at least a small amount about health inequities in medical school relating to factors such as race, sexuality, and economic status.
Forty-six percent of medical students said that they learned a "considerable amount" about health inequities. Seventy-one percent of respondents who had at least some education on health inequities in medical school said that what they learned was "very sufficient" or "sufficient."
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Seventy percent of respondents said that they felt very prepared or prepared for the pass/fail Step 1 United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) test and higher passing standard Step 2 clinical knowledge test. They included 77% of fourth-year medical students, 64% of third-years, 52% of second-years, and 35% of first-years.
Respondents were pretty evenly divided about whether the pandemic affected their test-taking experience (43% said that it did; 46% held the opposite view).
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Fifty-one percent of fourth-year students said that they were very confident or confident in the match process, a rate much higher than for other students. This makes sense considering fourth-year students are more immersed in the transition period between med school and residency.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
First- and second-year students generally felt more upbeat that COVID's interruptions and changes to their education would not undermine their ability to practice medicine than did more experienced students.
Eighty-one percent of students were at most slightly concerned that COVID could delay their graduation.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
"It was inspiring to see physicians of all specialties help mitigate the pandemic's impact," Ratna says. "While their jobs are mentally, physically, and emotionally taxing, our nation's physicians are well-trained and have the privilege to help in international crises."
Shah says the pandemic actually strengthened his motivation to pursue a medical career. "The pandemic showed me that empathy and compassion are diminishing within our communities at large, and I think doctors can help reverse this trend."
Among first-year students surveyed, 61% felt that the pandemic reinforced their resolve to be a doctor. That rate was significantly higher than for students who had been in med school longer.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Sixty-six percent of respondents said that they were satisfied with their relationships with instructors, and 55% said that they would advise others to apply to their med school.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Among female med students, 38% said that they personally experienced unwanted advances from patients compared with 16% of male students.
Fifteen percent of women said that they personally experienced unwanted advances from other students vs 5% of men. As for unwanted advances from faculty, 6% of female students and 1% of their male counterparts said that they had personal experiences.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Respondents were asked whether they personally witnessed or experienced bias from faculty, students, or patients while in med school.
Forty-six percent of women said that they personally experienced gender-based bias, and 23% had personal experience with racial/ethnic bias vs 9% and 13%, respectively, for men.
Forty-four percent of female med students said that they had never personally experienced any of these biases in med school compared with 72% of their male counterparts.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
In several types of bias surveyed, respondents reported that patients were the most frequent perpetrators.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Shah's biggest concerns include compensation and practice management.
"When adjusted for inflation, physician salaries have fallen, and providers are losing control of their practice while putting in extra hours in the wake of workforce shortages, private investment, and systems consolidation," he says. "Nonetheless, many are beginning to recognize these challenges as seen by the tide of resident unionization and proposed workforce protections."
For Ratna, the greatest stressor this year was uncertainty about his eventual specialty.
"With Step 1 being pass/fail, many medical students are looking for other ways to stand out, research in the specialty of interest being the chief activity," he says. "This caused me to start research early in the second month of medical school, but my specialty of interest kept changing."
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Med students seemed confident in their abilities to become a competent doctor. Percentages making each choice were very close for med students regardless of year in school.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Female med students constantly or frequently felt burned out at a higher rate than did their male counterparts (51% vs 35%).
Generally, burnout appeared to be less of an issue for fourth-year students than for others who weren't as far along in med school.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
"Trainee mental health is being discussed more openly in today's medical culture, and we're slowly recognizing that physician wellness ultimately leads to patient wellness," Shah says.
Among female students, 43% said that they met with a licensed therapist; 30% of their male peers said the same. Male students were around twice as likely (38% vs 18% for female students) to say they didn't need help with their mental health.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Similar to last year's report, about 50% have at some point considered leaving med school.
"Medical school is rigorous," Ratna says, "and I can only expect residency to be taxing. Sometimes I get frustrated, but when I realize I feel like this, I take a step back and take a break and remind myself that this path is challenging because it is worthwhile for me."
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Seventy-four percent of fourth-year students said that they felt prepared or somewhat prepared for residency vs 57% of third-years, 43% of second-years, and 39% of first-years.
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
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Anxiety, Stress, and Burnout: Medscape Medical Student Lifestyle Report 2023
Roni Robbins | August 31, 2023 | Contributor Information
Physicians discuss their personal and professional happiness, how they strive for work-life balance, and successes and failures in looking after their own physical and mental health.Medscape Features Slideshows, Jan 2023
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