Physician Wellness: a Missing Quality Indicator

Overview

Journal Lancet

Publisher Elsevier

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2009 Nov 17

PMID 19914516

Citations 554

Authors

Jean E Wallace

Jane B Lemaire

William A Ghali

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

When physicians are unwell, the performance of health-care systems can be suboptimum. Physician wellness might not only benefit the individual physician, it could also be vital to the delivery of high-quality health care. We review the work stresses faced by physicians, the barriers to attending to wellness, and the consequences of unwell physicians to the individual and to health-care systems. We show that health systems should routinely measure physician wellness, and discuss the challenges associated with implementation.

Citing Articles

Ability and utility of the Physician Well-Being Index to identify distress among Chinese physicians.

Li Z, Pu P, Wu M, Wang X, Xu H, Zhang X Ann Med. 2025; 57(1):2476042.

PMID: 40074683 PMC: 11905304. DOI: 10.1080/07853890.2025.2476042.

Physician Leadership and Its Effect on Physician Burnout and Satisfaction During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Spilg E, McNeill K, Dodd-Moher M, Dobransky J, Sabri E, Maniate J J Healthc Leadersh. 2025; 17:49-61.

PMID: 40034467 PMC: 11874771. DOI: 10.2147/JHL.S487849.

Mortality Among US Physicians and Other Health Care Workers.

Patel V, Liu M, Worsham C, Stanford F, Ganguli I, Jena A JAMA Intern Med. 2025; .

PMID: 39992637 PMC: 11851301. DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.8432.

Burnout among intensivists and critical care fellows in South Korea: Current status and associated factors.

Lee S, Kim W, Kim D, Suh G, Kim J, Kim H PLoS One. 2025; 20(2):e0318495.

PMID: 39903755 PMC: 11793759. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0318495.

Burnout in modern-day health care: Where are we, and how can we markedly reduce it? A meta-narrative review from the EUREKA* project.

Linzer M, OBrien E, Sullivan E, Rathert C, Simmons D, Johnson D Health Care Manage Rev. 2025; 50(2):57-66.

PMID: 39894947 PMC: 11902612. DOI: 10.1097/HMR.0000000000000433.