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Female GPs cannot be left to fix systemic barriers: Study
It examines what must change to make work fulfilling, warning of consult lengths, unequal caring loads, and an expectation to ‘excel simultaneously in multiple roles’.
The study found women GPs find high-quality interactions with patients enriching and meaningful; but at the same time, this can lead to burnout.
A new study has cast light on the pressures facing female GPs, finding that flexibility, fairer remuneration and stronger career support are needed to address the gendered pressures driving burnout and workforce exits.
Published in the British Journal of General Practice, researchers reviewed 72 studies and reports from around the world, including Australia, to identify how, why, for whom and under what circumstances women GPs thrive at work.
It comes just days after the current situation was laid bare, as Newcastle GP Dr Elly Goodsall opened up about the ‘Medicare factory’ and the Federal Government push towards high-churn, bulk-billed general practice, rather than rewarding the longer consultations that she and her patients value.
Researchers uncovered multiple conditions that, when present, support women GPs to feel fulfilled in their roles, including:
- high-quality interactions between patients and colleagues
- access to social support networks
- flexible appointment scheduling
- career enrichment opportunities
- access to supervision groups and positive role models
- visibility of different career models.
However, researchers found these run parallel to conditions that equally undermine a female GP’s ability to thrive, with women experiencing higher rates of burnout, anxiety, depression, and slower career progression than male GPs.
Other challenges in the study that worked against female GPs thriving in the profession include juggling multiple caring roles outside of work, gender-based mistreatment at work, and a system that does not always reward equally, making general practice work especially challenging for women GPs and limiting their ability to thrive.
‘Social support networks can help to buffer workplace stress and burnout, enhance opportunities for career success, and support thriving within general practice,’ the authors wrote.
‘However, women GPs balancing dependent care remain at higher risk of chronic stress, burnout, and leaving general practice unplanned, because they are still expected, by society and themselves, to excel simultaneously in multiple roles (for example, mother, partner, and doctor).’
Contributing to this is that women GPs are often sought out by patients for specific conditions, which may increase consultation length.
This was recently raised in a
draft report from the Medicare Benefits Schedule Review Advisory Committee which explained that MBS data had revealed ‘gender equity issues, as female GPs are more likely to provide longer consultations than their male counterparts’.
While longer and more involved consultations can be a source of job satisfaction for some, the study notes it can ‘also contribute to additional exhaustion and affects career progression, meaning women GPs are at higher risk of leaving the profession’.
RACGP Vice President Dr Ramya Raman said ‘the very thing that makes someone an excellent GP can also make the job unsustainable if the system doesn’t value them as well’.
‘We do need to recognise that there is an unequal distribution of complexity. In terms of the actionable findings, practices should look at who is carrying complex work,’ she told
newsGP.
Dr Raman said central to this is ensuring the system itself properly values complexity and time, especially for longer consultations.
‘From a government and a policy perspective, there needs to be better recognition that longer consultations are now embedded within general practice, but Medicare and patient Medicare rebates have not kept pace with that,’ she said.
‘We need to keep pace with what patient expectations are, but equally so, ensuring that our workforce can hold a strong, sustainable profession where they feel fulfilled.’
The authors conclude that in order for women GPs to thrive, ‘there is an urgent need to identify solutions to retain and support them’, they wrote.
But often there was ‘an emphasis on part-time working, or job crafting, which has a subsequent impact on patient access and care’.
‘Rarely are organisational drivers of these working conditions challenged.’
Dr Raman said there are many areas where women can be better supported to have fulfilling careers in general practice.
‘The reality of medical schools and the reality of our own workforce is that greater than 50% of our workforce are women, and it comes with juggling multiple things, and someone who is working three to four days in a clinical job doesn’t mean they are less committed to the profession by any means,’ she said.
‘But we need to actually have career structures that allow people to move through different stages of their life without stepping off the career ladder altogether.
‘We need to look at how complex patients are distributed within the practice. Genuinely build flexibility, including professional development and leadership opportunities.
‘Mentoring is a really important component of that, and recognising that a sustainable career is not just about a single person, but it needs to be looked at from a system point of view and a policy level, to make general practice a really attractive career.’
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