Grant: CIHR REDI Early Career Transition Award - Health Systems

While improving healthcare relies on better health outcomes, improved patient experiences, and cost savings, the sustainability of the health system rests on improved provider experiences (by decreasing burnout) and ensuring health equity. Yet, since the COVID-19 pandemic, physician and trainee burnout has doubled. Given workforce shortages, burnout threatens the health system, as burned-out health workers reduce work hours, retire early, or leave practice. This is also an equity issue: women physicians have higher rates of burnout and lower rates of professional fulfillment than men. Women physicians face barriers including gender bias, gender discrimination, harassment and less career advancement. Women physicians who identify with other determinants of inequity (known as having an intersectional identity) have added challenges. This includes being a racial minority, of low socioeconomic status, having particular religious views, being LGBTQI2S+, and having a disability. Yet, there is little research on the experiences of women physicians with intersectional identities in medicine. Thus, the aim of this research is to learn from woman physician with intersectional identities, in order to design programs and policies to improve professional fulfillment and reduce burnout. I will conduct a longitudinal study of women physicians in training or early career, using a narrative inquiry approach with analysis of their life stories. I will examine participants' career journey into medicine, their identity as physicians, their experience with burnout and professional fulfillment, and their future career aspirations. These results will inform training curricula, health policies, and practices to support the health workforce. With my research, I aim to make workplaces accessible and safe for all health workers, in order to address health equity, burnout, and improve health for all.