Karen Lee, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine says yes in an opinion piece published in MedpageToday on July 15. According to a 2023 report by the AAMC, first-year residents can work up to 80 hours per week for a median yearly salary of $62,722.
For some grueling weeks, Lee wrote, this can be equivalent to $12 per hour. And, according to the Medscape 2023 Resident Salary and Debt Report, 86% of residents said their compensation does not reflect work hours. Another 64% said compensation did not reflect their cost of living, often leading residents to moonlight in other jobs to make ends meet. .
This adds to the existing financial burden being carried by medical students, who face a median debt load of $200,000-$500,000 for medical school.
Lee argues that the consequences of this burnout and strain have tangible consequences for the medical industry. Burnout correlates to a higher occurrence of mistakes and adverse events. According to a 2019 study in the National Library of Medicine, conservative estimates place the cost of physician turnover and burnout to be around $4.6 billion a year.
