(HealthDay News) – Academic obstetrician-gynecologists (ob-gyns) face challenges relating to the balance between patient care and academic demands, according to a study published online Oct. 7 in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Linda Brubaker, MD, from Loyola University Chicago, and colleagues used pooled cohort data for 329 ob-gyns across 14 U.S. institutions to describe the perceptions of academic ob-gyns.
The researchers found that 72.2% of respondents reported satisfaction with work-related autonomy and 81.9% reported a sense of accomplishment in their day-to-day activities, including understanding how those activities fit into their medical school’s mission (68.4%). Ob-gyn respondents reported working 59.4 hours on average each week, with the mean percentage of effort varying: patient care (54.8%), teaching (18.1%), research (17%), and administration (15%). More than one-third (35.1%) reported that too much of their time and effort was spent on patient care, while more than half (59.5%) reported that too little of their time and effort was spent on research or teaching (33.3%). A substantial proportion reported seriously planning (13.4%) or being undecided (18.8%) about leaving their medical school in the next one to two years.
“Academic obstetrics and gynecology departments face challenges balancing faculty members’ academic desires and clinical demands,” the authors write.
