New data on resident physician burnout: 4 things to know

With year-over-year improvements in several key metrics, an AMA report offers some cautious optimism on the state of resident well-being. 

Based on responses from more than 3,600 resident physicians across the United States, the AMA National Resident Comparison Report reflects 2024 trends on six—job satisfaction, job stress, burnout, feeling valued by an organization, intent to stay post residency and total hours spent per week on work-related activities (known as “time spend”). The findings, which are exclusive to the AMA and are not published anywhere else, represent data from all organizations that surveyed residents with the AMA’s Organizational Biopsy® in 2024.

The purpose of the aggregated data is to provide a national summary of resident well-being and to serve as a comparison for other residency programs and health care organizations.

For 2024, residents reported increased job satisfaction and lower burnout compared with 2023. The report also details improvements in a number of key wellness metrics. 

While the top-line findings offer reason for encouragement, challenges remain, particularly related to administrative burden and variability of burnout across training years and other demographic breakdowns.

Here are four big takeaways on what the data suggests about how resident physicians are doing, where things are improving, and what still needs attention.

According to the 2024 AMA data, residents reported higher job satisfaction, lower burnout, and a greater sense of being valued by their organization. Reported residency burnout dropped by 8% from the 2023 findings to 34.5% in 2024. The 2024 reported burnout for practicing physicians came in at 43.2% in comparison. It is important to note, there is continued variation in reported burnout by resident gender, program year and specialty.

The longer-term outlook, however, will be important to track, according to Nancy Nankivil, the AMA’s director of organizational well-being. 

“If residents are feeling a sense of burnout, when they get into practice—depending on their specialty—this is not something that’s going to go away or be reduced,” she said. “It is critical that health care organizations continue to focus on improving key system drivers related to well-being.”

As the leader in physician well-being, the AMA is reducing physician burnout by removing administrative burdens and providing real-world solutions to help doctors rediscover the Joy in Medicine™.

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Using the Mini-ReZ, a burnout assessment adapted for use among resident physicians, the 2024 report reflects an improvement across multiple indicators for residents compared with 2023. The aggregate findings indicate improvement on all three subscales represented by the tool: supportive work environment, practice efficiency and residency program experience.

A broader view—looking at all 15 core questions about which residents are asked as part of the Mini ReZ—shows across-the-board improvement. 

“This group of residents’ aggregate responses indicate statistically significant differences on almost every key indicator over the previous year,” Nankivil said. “This is a signal that things are moving in the right direction, yet the market dynamics will continue to place pressure on the profession.”

With many institutions participating in the survey over multiple years, these improvements could potentially be attributed to programmatic interventions, Nankivil said. 

The AMA Thriving in Residency series has guidance and resources on navigating the fast-paced demands of training, maintaining health and well-being, handling medical student-loan debt, and other essential tips about succeeding in graduate medical training.

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The data tell a more nuanced story about resident well-being when it comes to training year and gender. 

As has been the case with past iterations of the report, there is an uptick in burnout and dip in satisfaction following intern year. In 2024, program satisfaction dropped from 91% in PGY-1 to 81% in PGY-2 and 80% in PGY-3. Burnout, likewise, showed increases from 29.3% during intern year to 40% for PGY-2s and 44.9% for PGY-3s. The burnout figures sharply decline after the third year of residency–29.9% of PGY-4s reported signs of burnout, and the figures were even lower for PGY-5s (22.7%) and fellows (21.8%). 

Gender variation remains pronounced. Among male resident survey respondents, 27.8% reported burnout symptoms. Among female resident survey respondents, 40.2% of reported burnout symptoms. Satisfaction scores also diverge at the extremes—far fewer women than men strongly agreed they were satisfied with their programs.

Among the physician specialties with the highest number of respondents, in 2024 pediatrics was the specialty with the lowest reported burnout at 33.5%, while family medicine (45.5%) and ob-gyn (45.4%) were at the top of the list. 

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In an analysis of free-text responses to a question about residents’ job-related stressors and how they could be addressed, the top responses centered on the volume of administrative tasks (cited as a stressor by 32.6% of respondents) followed by schedule-related concerns (26.1%). 

“More than one out of every four residents are concerned about their schedule. So that could be an important area” for residency programs to understand and address, Nankivil said. “We do not see that come up as strongly in our physician data. So the impact from working irregular hours, managing sleep hygiene, balancing personal responsibilities is more pronounced for residents who generally have less control over their schedule.”

Inadequate support staff was the third most common stressor mentioned by residents, and it may work in concert with the frustration surrounding administrative tasks, Nankivil said.

“The amount of documentation and other administrative components related to care delivery is a reality. It was often mentioned in relationship to available support staff,” she said. “These are system issues that impact residents, physicians and care team members. Many health care organizations are exploring and implementing digital health innovations, team-based care initiatives and streamlining workflows to lessen the current administrative burden.”

Across the entire spectrum of training, the most common stressors are created at the system level, Nankivil noted. Addressing them will require a strategic and intentional approach to the topic of burnout and well-being.

The AMA has resources to serve as a collaborator in addressing the factors that cause resident burnout and stress, including the AMA Joy in Medicine™ Health System Recognition Program, which empowers health systems to reduce burnout and build well-being so that physicians and their patients can thrive, and the AMA STEPS Forward® open-access toolkit “Resident and Fellow Burnout.”