Happy Holidays: Is Your Doctor Happy? Are You Happy With Your Doctor?

Are you frustrated with your last trip to the doctor’s office? Did it feel rushed? Did you wait a long time to be seen? Was it hard to get an appointment? Did the doctor have his or her face stuffed behind a computer screen instead of talking to you?

Up to 70% of patients are not satisfied with their doctor. Turns out physicians are just as fed up.

Before the pandemic, 75% of doctors reported being at least somewhat happy in their work. By 2023, that number had plummeted to 48%, according to a survey by Medscape.

Having unhappy doctors is a problem for patients.

Why is this happening? Why does it matter? And what are the solutions?

What Is Happiness?

Merriam-Webster attempts to succinctly define happiness as a state of well-being and contentment. Arthur Brooks PhD, the celebrated social scientist, Harvard professor, and Atlantic columnist, delves deeper into the macro-elements that underpin true complexities of happiness. His framework articulates happiness not as a fleeting feeling but as a complex synthesis of enjoyment, satisfaction and purpose.

Enjoyment transcends mere pleasure, encompassing shared experiences of positive events that bring richness to life. It may be temporarily pleasurable to drink to excess. But, we enjoy, and remember, sharing a toast of champagne with our best friends and family after the birth of our child. Satisfaction derives from the protracted gratification of striving toward a goal and attaining it. The laborious process of building a company, for instance, offers a more enduring sense of happiness than the serendipitous windfall of a lottery ticket. Purpose is derived from meaning—a fundamental sense of why we exist and why we do what we do. Arthur Brooks vividly frames this as what were you born for and what are you willing to die for?

This is the architecture of happiness, and it’s crumbling for doctors.

Why Isn’t Your Doctor Happy?

The vocation of medicine, while noble, exacts a toll. Physicians contend daily with the gravest manifestations of human frailty—cancer, paralysis, and terminal illness to name just a few. For the surgeon, even flawless execution of a procedure does not guarantee a favorable outcome. Yet, it is these outcomes that dictate their perception: a hero when success ensues, a villain when complications arise. In today’s flattened communication landscape, a physician may have to see his or her name smeared—fairly or unfairly—through Google reviews and social media commentary. And, this relentless game of surgical roulette is played during 50-80 hour work weeks. The emotional toll becomes evident.

Some doctors have lost their enjoyment, satisfaction, and—most tragically—their sense of purpose.

Burnout has become endemic. Administrative drudgery, cited as the primary cause, consumes the majority of our professional hours. The same Medscape survey revealed that two-thirds of a physician’s day is now devoted to charting and bureaucratic tasks.

Moreover, 80% of physicians are now employed by hospitals, institutions that are themselves consolidating at an alarming rate. Physicians, reduced to middle managers in sprawling bureaucracies, bear the responsibility for patient outcomes while wielding diminishing control over the healthcare process. Erosion of physician autonomy is the leading factor impacting job satisfaction according to a 2018 study by the Council of State Neurological Surgeons. Also, physician compensation is on a desiccated trajectory—adjusted for inflation, it has decreased by 29% since 2001.

Much of what physicians do has now unfortunately become transactional.

While enjoying the timeless holiday classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with my family this season, I found myself struck by the poignant juxtaposition. In the film, the elves exuberantly chant their cheerful refrain, “We are Santa’s elves, we are Santa’s elves,” as they industriously labor in the workshop, crafting toys to spread joy to children across the globe. This lays in stark contrast to the doctors who have become the proverbial elves of healthcare, toiling under the sprawling dominion of administrative entities. They once worked for Santa. They now work for Mattel. The noble art of healing, once predicated on the ethos of human connection and the alleviation of suffering, has been eclipsed by the cold calculus of productivity quotas, the Sisyphean task of electronic documentation, and the ceaseless demands of administrative oversight—all of which is exacted, paradoxically, for diminished compensation.

In short, doctors have become commodities.

Why Do You Care If Your Doctor Is Happy?

Extensive research has demonstrated that physician burnout compromises care quality and patient outcomes. We must attract and retain the best and brightest in medicine, yet the current trajectory is unsustainable. Physicians are the keystones of clinical care teams, particularly in hospitals. A dispirited clinical leader invariably fosters a toxic environment, to the detriment of all involved. The cold and distant doctor does not inspire comfort and confidence to an ailing patient’s family.

Compounding this crisis is a demographic reality: 42% of practicing physicians are over the age of 55, according to the American Association of Medical Colleges. Meanwhile, 61% of medical students are contemplating careers outside clinical practice, viewing medical school as a stepping stone to other fields in healthcare.

The most competitive fields in medicine are those with higher incomes, less hours, and the ability to make income outside of an insurance or government payment matrix.

This is not a viable future for patients.

How Do We Get Happier Doctors?

Sure, there are some pragmatic remedies to help stop the bleeding. Reduce the administrative bloat that suffocates efficiency. Curtail the overreach of insurance companies into the sanctity of patient care. Improve the usability of electronic health records, reduce documentation burdens, improve compensation etc… This will make things better for patients and doctors. The newly minted Department of Government Efficiency will hopefully bend the arc of change in that direction. However, while these reforms are necessary and beneficial, they are situational solutions for job satisfaction.

Actual happiness is much more difficult. It is a far more intricate and profoundly internal undertaking. It is neither easily attained nor sustained without continual effort. The simple yet challenging truth is this; happiness is an individual responsibility—the only person capable of making a doctor happy is the doctor themselves.

This means rejecting, with resolute conviction, the seductive allure of victimhood and its tacit relinquishment of personal agency. Instead, they must embrace ownership—of their profession, their purpose and, most critically, their own happiness. The stakes are not merely personal; patients are counting on them to work on their happiness. Physicians need to adopt the habits of happiness as so eloquently delineated by Arthur Brooks: faith, family, friends, and purposeful, sanctifying work.

To build on the holiday theme, this ethos finds poignant expression in the timeless lesson of It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey, the film’s protagonist, epitomizes the human condition: his dissatisfaction stems from an unrelenting pursuit of unattainable aspirations—the next train whistle, boat horn, or airplane blast signaling an adventure that forever eludes him. Only when he gains the clarity to see the profound impact of his seemingly ordinary life—his family, his friendships, his community—does true happiness become manifest. His perspective shifts, and with it, his joy becomes transparent in his satisfaction. The culmination of this revelation is etched in cinematic history as one of the most iconic celebrations of human purpose and connection.

It takes work to have a happy holiday.