ARE HOSPITALISTS more or less satisfied with their careers than when they started working in medicine? When we asked that question in the 2023 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Survey, we found nearly equal numbers of hospitalists who said they were both less and more satisfied.
Among all hospitalists, about one-third (34%) said they were more satisfied, about one third (35%) said they were less satisfied and 30% said their satisfaction levels hadn’t changed much at all.
Here’s a closer look at the data on changes in hospitalists’ career satisfaction from our survey.
Specialty/teaching status
Look at our data by specialty, and you’ll see that pediatric hospitalists said they were a little more satisfied (38%) than their adult counterparts(34%). Adult hospitalists, by comparison, were less satisfied (36%) than pediatric hospitalists (30%).
We found a similar split between nonacademic and academic hospitalists. Among nonacademic hospitalists, for example, 39% said they’re less satisfied with their careers. For academic hospitalists, by comparison, 36% said they were more satisfied.
Employer type
By employer type, the number of hospitalists more dissatisfied with their careers hit fairly high levels.
Hospitalists working for national hospitalist management companies, for example, were the most unsatisfied, with a whopping 54% saying they’re less happy today than when they started their career. Hospitalists working for local hospitalist groups were close behind, with 44% reporting that they’re less dissatisfied with their careers now.
By employer type, the most satisfied hospitalists work for multispecialty/primary care groups, with 44% of those physicians reporting that they’re happier now than at the beginning of their careers. Coming in at a close second were hospitalists working at universities and medical schools, 40% of whom said they’re more satisfied with their careers now than when they started.
Region
By region, 44% of hospitalists in the Southwest said they’re more satisfied with their careers now than when they started. Hospitalists in the Midwest were nearly as happy, with 41% saying they’re happier now.
Two regions—the Midwest and the South—led the way with the largest number of hospitalists who are less satisfied with their careers. In both regions, 39% of hospitalists said they were less satisfied with their careers today than when they started.
