Dr. Ansari on physicians’ shifting attitudes toward work

Regulation of residents’ work and rest hours in the past few decades has helped foster a shift in attitudes towards work among younger physicians, noted Maria Ansari, MD, FACC, CEO of The Permanente Medical Group and the Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group, in The Wall Street Journal.

“They have a different mindset and approach about protecting their time,” said Dr. Ansari, who is also co-CEO of The Permanente Federation. For example, she said the medical groups she leads have seen a jump in young physicians interested in virtual work, accounting for about 10% of new recruits each year.

In 2003, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education started regulating medical residents’ work hours by implementing national duty hour standards. These standards limited residents to an average of 80 working hours per week with shifts no longer than 24 hours. The council put these standards in place largely due to concerns regarding patient safety and later updated them with best practice guidelines.

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Dr. Ansari said she applauds efforts to stop sleep deprivation, especially because it can lead to medical errors. However, she acknowledged that it’s more challenging to reproduce her generation’s learning experience, which often involved long, consecutive hours of patient care.

“A lot of my learning came in the wee hours of the morning and following that patient for 45 hours,” she said. “A lot of crises happen after hours.”

Dr. Ansari said innovative new technology has the potential to promote physician wellness. She highlighted the recent rollout of artificial intelligence tools to more than 24,000 physicians across the Permanente Medical Groups. The software helps transcribe patient conversations and reduce the time spent on electronic notes both in the office and after hours.

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This innovation is crucial for supporting physician wellness and addressing the issue of doctors who increasingly feel like “charting machines.” For many physicians, the hours spent entering data into electronic health records led to feelings of exhaustion and frustration, as they often had to spend more time on their laptops than interacting directly with patients.

By reducing administrative tasks, the technology also has the potential to help physicians get back to the reason they went into medicine in the first place: focusing on their patients, spending time to understand their needs, and actively involving them in decisions about their care.

To read the full article, visit The Wall Street Journal (subscription required).