Why do family physicians constantly complain?

[DrThrowAway]

It seems like a perpetual cycle of complaining, especially in the media lately. Everything is a "crisis"...

Meanwhile there are still family doctors that are doing mainly virtual care and not seeing patients in clinics. Don't get me wrong there are great family physicians, but what the hell is up with the constant whining?!?!

They have the shortest residency, of only two years and make 200-400 k per year on average and in many provinces much more (especially rural family doctors).

[bearded frog]

Ah you seem to have a misconception... all doctors complain, not just FM.

[rmorelan]

7 hours ago, bearded frog said:

Ah you seem to have a misconception... all doctors complain, not just FM.

ok that is just funny

but also true - you get a bunch of people that is heavily loaded by type A personalities, people that are used to striving for continuous improvement, and you put them in a position where there is not really any way to advance for the most part. You start as staff at your clinic, and 30 years later you are a staff at your clinic. All that energy has to go somewhere - often sideways into complaining about things they cannot change. 

[Synth1]

So you made an account just to post this? 

Clinic-based family medicine is a grind with ever expanding bureaucratic headaches and significant non-clinical task burden. On top of that most other things you can do with family medicine training pay better, and as a clinic-based family doctor you are running a business with overhead. Your overhead goes up with inflation, but pay from the government does not. It's a real squeeze. Many residents are choosing not to do clinic-based family medicine in favour of other things for these reasons, and many older doctors are moving away from it or retiring. This is where the "crisis" comes in. Lots and lots of unattached patients, and I see the negative consequences of that all the time (i.e. cancer not diagnosed in a timely fashion, no follow up for issues etc.) The fix is making it a more attractive option by reducing administrative burden and increasing pay so that it matches inflation and is at least equivalent to things like hospitalist or ED. 

 

[Edict]

This goes for all doctors, but we all tend to complain more because: 

1. we've put in a lot of time and effort into our careers and yet we can't really leave. All that time is useful for practicing medicine only, its not a transferrable skillset

2. most of us can't really lose our jobs easily so we're free to vent every frustration instead of bottling them up. 

I think you see family doctors complain more in the media because there are more of them statistically. 

 

[rmorelan]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:46 PM, Edict said:

This goes for all doctors, but we all tend to complain more because: 

1. we've put in a lot of time and effort into our careers and yet we can't really leave. All that time is useful for practicing medicine only, its not a transferrable skillset

2. most of us can't really lose our jobs easily so we're free to vent every frustration instead of bottling them up. 

I think you see family doctors complain more in the media because there are more of them statistically. 

 

Ha point 2) is a valid point. I mean effectively we are the boss after all, and the boss is not going to get fired. 

Also on a more serious note remember that burnout is quite high in medicine in general for a lot of reasons. If you find a field where there is a lot of burnout that mean likely you are also going to find a lot of complaining - and it is probably even healthy at that. 

Studies for radiology for instance peg it at 50-70% burnout rates. That is not exactly a small group of people. Radiology is hardly unique with that problem either. 

Edited September 7, 2023 by rmorelan

[GIMPCx]

FM is a difficulty speciality with long hours but it isn’t paid as well as it should be. 
 

Most docs don’t have overhead (ie IM, ICU, rads, ER etc) in a hospital and they get free HOCC and stipends etc. 

 

FM has to work for every dollar usually via FFS and then pay overhead. 
 

they have every right to complain.