The Challenge of Addressing the Rheumatology Workforce Shortage
Eli M. Miloslavsky, Bethany Marston
Abstract
The rheumatology workforce faces a deficit of physicians trained to provide high-quality care to patients with rheumatic diseases, and this deficit is projected to worsen over the next 10 to 15 years in many countries and regions around the world. Rheumatology workforce studies carried out in the US, Canada, and in Europe have revealed expected shortages driven by projections for increased demand; changes in demographics among providers, including increasing proportions of women and part-time clinicians as well as high levels of expected retirements; and geographic maldistribution of providers.1,2,3,4,5 In the last 2 years, practice changes caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have affected, and likely exacerbated, workforce limitations. In this issue of The Journal of Rheumatology , Kulhawy-Wibe and colleagues report on the results of the Canadian Rheumatology Association’s Workforce and Wellness survey.6 The study highlights some of the known threats of burnout to the workforce as well as newer challenges related to the pandemic. Similar to findings among US rheumatologists, more than half of respondents in this study reported burnout, especially among younger (millennial) rheumatologists and among women.7 This finding is particularly notable since both categories are increasingly proportional to the total workforce, tend to see fewer patients on average, and are crucial to the future rheumatology workforce. Drivers of burnout including work-related stress and workload, loss of control and meaning, inefficiency, and the challenges of electronic health records (EHRs) are familiar from prior studies addressing burnout among a variety … Address correspondence to Dr. E. Miloslavsky, Massachusetts General Hospital, Yawkey Center for Outpatient Care, 55 Fruit St., Boston, MA 02114, USA. Email: emiloslavsky{at}mgh.harvard.edu.