The "physician personality" and other factors in physician health

Doctors who want to be happier in their work and personal lives should eat more ice cream and have more sex. Well, that might be oversimplifying things. Yet pursuing activities that give pleasure, in combination with those that provide engagement and meaning, are important for everyone, including doctors, in order to live a "full life" and avoid ill health, according to Dr. Tait Shanafelt, director of the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Program on Physician Well-Being in Rochester, Minnesota.

But are many doctors actually unhappy? After all, they are highly educated, rarely unemployed, well compensated and do work that most would consider meaningful. Someone from outside the field of medicine could be forgiven for thinking that doctors are likely among the happiest of professionals.

"The perception from the societal view is not matching reality," Shanafelt said Oct. 25 in a keynote address to the International Conference on Physician Health in Montréal, Quebec.

In reality, many doctors are suffering, said Shanafelt. They routinely claim to be working too many hours, at too chaotic a pace, under too much time pressure. They too often selfdiagnose their maladies, self-treat...