Methodology
State rankings for the "Best Places and Worst Places to Avoid Burnout" resulted from the combination of twelve 50-state rankings: medical board actions per doctor[16]; malpractice lawsuits per doctor[17]; office-based primary care physicians per population[18]; physician income[19]; employer-based insurance rate per population[20] insurance coverage per population[21]; reported rates of well-being of the general population[22]; violent crime rates[23]; participation in wildlife-related recreation[24]; divorce rates[25]; use of family-friendly amenities[26]; and cost of living.[27]
Here's a note about a couple of the metrics. The supply of primary care physicians is meant to be a proxy for patient demand for physicians. In a state with a high supply of primary care physicians, physicians might be under less pressure to accept more patients.
Inclusion of metrics on patients with employer-based insurance and patients with insurance coverage assumes that patients in both categories will generally be healthier and thus easier to treat, and this might reduce physician stress.
The metric on medical board actions comes from 2009 because medical boards are no longer reporting their actions. The data were refined by Public Citizen, which saw low numbers of actions as a negative, but here it treated as a positive because an activist board can be a source of stress for doctors.
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Cite this: Leigh Page. Best Places to Practice to Avoid Burnout - Medscape - May 10, 2017.
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