Satisfactions, Dissatisfactions, and Causes of Stress in Medical Practice

Careers of physicians who graduated from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine have been examined in several longitudinal career studies. Physicians have been interviewed in their own offices, have filled out short-answer questionnaires, and have taken four tests. Emphasis has been placed on factors that have made their medical careers particularly satisfying or dissatisfying. Physicians report many satisfactions that evolve around helping patients, solving problems, and developing relationships with patients and their families. A major dissatisfaction relates to time pressures. In the current interviews with graduates, several sources of stress (malpractice suits, having to give up certain aspects of medical work, threats of physical harm, and certain features of peer review) are being expressed that were infrequently mentioned in previous studies. (JAMA241:1483-1486, 1979)