澳大利亚医生收入

原文标题 :

Dr Feelbad

American doctors are rich and miserable

A recent study shows they are world leaders in burnout

医生的烦恼

美国医生收入高却痛苦不堪

一项最新研究表明，他们的职业倦怠程度位居世界前列

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LOOK AROUND a physicians’ car park in Dallas, Texas, and the rewards from years slogging away in training are evident.

往德克萨斯州达拉斯市的医生停车场扫一眼，就能看出多年苦读从医的物质回报十分显著。

“It looks like a German-car dealership,” says Scott Yates, a doctor, from behind the wheel of his BMW.

医生斯科特·耶茨坐在自己的宝马车里说：“这里简直像个德系豪华汽车4S店”。

He reels off all the luxury-car brands he can see. Yet he worries that his peers are still unhappy.

他细数了停车场内可见的各类豪华汽车品牌。可即便如此，他却担心同行们仍然过得不开心。

“We all went to medical school to practice medicine,” he says, “not to deal with insurance companies, not to fill out paperwork.”

他说：“我们当初读医学院，都是为了行医救人，而不是为了与保险公司周旋，也不是为了填一堆文书表格。”

This burden lies at the heart of a confounding statistic: American family doctors are among the best paid in the world and also some of the most miserable.

正是这种职业负担，恰恰是一项矛盾数据的核心成因：美国家庭医生虽跻身全球收入最高医师群体之列，却也是职业满意度最低的群体之一。

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In a recent international survey by The Commonwealth Fund, a think-tank, of 11,000 doctors, 43% of American respondents reported feeling burnt out, more than in any of the other nine peer-countries polled (see chart).

据智库“美国联邦基金”开展的一项国际医生调研显示，在1.1万名受访医生中，43%的美国医生坦言存在职业倦怠，这一比例高于其他9个受访的可比国家（见图表）。

In Britain, just over a third of general practitioners in the bedraggled NHS reported being “physically or emotionally exhausted”, despite earning about half of the $242,000 taken home by the average American primary-care doctor.

在英国，尽管家庭医生的收入只有美国初级保健医生平均24.2万美元年薪的一半，但在处境艰难的英国国家医疗服务体系（NHS）里，只有略超1/3的全科医生称自己“身心俱疲”。

“Burnout is sometimes like a dirty little secret,” says Revathi Ravi, an internist and paediatrician in Boston. The American health-care system has all “the ingredients for it”.

波士顿的内科医生兼儿科医生雷瓦蒂·拉维说：“职业倦怠在行业内常被视为隐性痛点，而美国医疗体系已集齐了诱发职业倦怠的所有关键因素”。

Her own experiences of burnout were so intense she considered quitting.

她本人曾因严重的职业倦怠，萌生过离职的念头。

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Paperwork is the driving force behind this misery, says Celli Horstman, one of the Commonwealth study’s authors.

“美国联邦基金”研究报告的作者之一塞利·霍斯曼称，文书工作是导致美国医生职业痛苦的核心诱因。

“There are just so many administrative tasks—on top of spending time with patients—that US physicians are expected to do.”

“美国医生除了要花时间接诊患者，还得应付一大堆行政事务。”

Ms Hortsman cites elaborate charting, in-boxes teeming with patient messages and fighting with insurance companies.

霍斯曼女士举例说，繁琐的病历记录、塞满患者消息的收件箱、以及与保险公司的沟通博弈，都是医生的沉重负担。

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Doctors are particularly aggrieved by the rise of electronic health records.

电子健康记录的普及，是引发医师群体不满的主要因素之一。

Studies show that family doctors spend, on average, just under an hour every day answering patient messages alone.

研究表明，美国家庭医生平均每天用于回复患者各类消息的时长就接近1小时。

The use of remote-contact and communication apps spiked during the covid pandemic, reports Tait Shanafelt, a doctor at Stanford who studies burnout, “leading to a tsunami of inbox messages for physicians”.

斯坦福大学研究职业倦怠的医生泰特·沙纳费尔特称，新冠疫情期间，远程问诊及医患沟通类APP的使用量出现激增，“导致医生邮箱里的信息如海啸般涌来”。

Although he emphasises their potential for improved treatment, “it’s all just extra work.”

尽管他强调这些APP有可能改善治疗效果，但同时也指出“这些工具最终都转化成了医师的额外工作量”。

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This angst is not just a problem for doctors.

这种焦虑并不是医生独有的问题。

Burnt out physicians are twice as likely to make a mistake. They are also more likely to quit, which can produce staggering costs.

职业倦怠的医生犯错的概率是正常医生的两倍。他们的离职意愿也显著更高，而离职会造成巨大的行业成本。

One analysis from 2019 found that turnover and hours lost to burnout costs roughly $7,600 per employed doctor, or $4.6bn each year.

2019年的一项分析发现，医师离职率上升以及倦怠引发的工时损失，平均给每位在岗医师带来约7600美元的损失，全行业每年的损失达46亿美元。

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Some solutions to burnout are straightforward.

职业倦怠的一些解决方案很简单。

Researchers point to Australia, which created a centralised platform for health bureaucracy, cutting down endless form-filling.

研究人员以澳大利亚为例，澳大利亚搭建了一个统一的医疗行政平台，大幅减少了医师重复性的填表工作。

Jen Brull, the chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians, a trade association, hopes that artificial intelligence might help too, especially for “routine tasks like charting, coding and note-taking”.

美国家庭医师学会主席詹·布鲁尔则寄望于人工智能技术，认为AI可在“病历录入、诊疗编码、工作备忘等常规事务”上发挥效用。

“A decade ago, maybe people would have said, ‘the clinician should do more mindfulness practices’,” says Dr Ravi, the Boston physician. Now there is more recognition of the need to reduce workloads.

波士顿拉维医生说：“要是十年前，可能有人会说‘医生该多做点正念练习’。但如今业界已普遍意识到减轻工作负荷的必要性。”

In the meantime, she leads classes and coaches doctors to avoid and withstand burnout, just as she did.

目前，像当初自我调节那样，她通过开设课程，在指导医生同行们预防和应对职业倦怠。

（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇497左右）

原文出自：2025年12月13日《TE》United States版块

精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路VIP群本文翻译整理: Irene本文编辑校对: Irene 仅供个人英语学习交流使用。