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lelima

"Most doctors say it’s the level of paperwork and data input they’ve had to do since medical records went digital".

So before "digital" they didn't fill in as many records?

Checking the main article https://www.medscape.com/slideshow/2019-lifestyle-burnout-de... found:

"All that paperwork sucks all of the enjoyment out of being a doctor." -Family physician

"Fear of litigation, bad reviews, and complaints make everything worse." -Dermatologist

I can change the doctor words for any other profession and still found that any profession can argue the same thing

"All that paperwork sucks all of the enjoyment out of being a teacher / lawyer / policeman." -Family teacher / lawyer / policeman

but being the most common reason (paperwork) and want to kill themselves?

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I can't / won't argue the point in detail for every profession, but would wager from personal observation that what doctors have experienced with EMR systems is immensely worse. There might be some good systems out there but what I've seen is a Kafka-esque UX nightmare that the doctors can't say "no thanks" to unless they own their own practice, which is being made harder in part because of all the red tape (digital & otherwise)

Here's the article on why doctor's hate their computers https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18381969. It's a UX nightmare or revenge on the ancillaries.

The whole problem is that the industry views this as a cost center.

It is something doctors don't want, nobody wants to spend money on it, and the EMR vendors know this, so they try to use legal mechanisms (ACA) to require doctors to buy their stuff, vs. competing in an free/open market such as tools like Gmail, Twitter, etc.

Look at incentives. This whole thing is so obvious. Nobody in health wants better records because the current industry provides no economic incentives whatsoever for the industry to keep them.

It doesn't actually say anywhere that they want to kill themselves except for the title. This is bad article. That being said it seems to be implying their depression is higher, stress is higher, and satisfaction is lower. I think the reason could be that they are spending the entire visit collecting data and not really treating or developing a rapport with the patient. I personally feel that most of my doctors visits over the past 10 years have been very impersonal and they were rushing to get me out. This is a stark contrast to the family practitioner I had for 20 years prior who felt like a family member. I actually don't go to the doctors hardly anymore due to bad experiences with them and never feeling like I'm getting adequate care. I'm sure doctors are aware of this and since many got into the profession specifically to help people I'm sure it takes a toll on them psychologically when they feel they can't do their job. The solution to this is more automated data collection IMO.

Bad journalism is par for the course from nypost.

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