Emergency physician burnout drives one in ten emergency doctors to leave

Emergency physicians in Canada are reporting burnout levels high enough to drive workforce attrition or sharply reduced clinical hours, according to a new longitudinal survey article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). The study frames burnout not as an isolated “pandemic” effect but as a sustained occupational risk with direct consequences for care delivery.

Researchers from the Network of Canadian Emergency Researchers analyzed responses from 410 emergency medicine physicians across Canada’s provinces and territories, excluding Yukon and Nunavut. The data were collected in 2025 and provide a snapshot of shifting intentions toward the specialty.

Participants described recurring system-level failure modes: emergency departments were depicted as absorbing inadequacies elsewhere in the health system. Respondents highlighted too few resources, limited operational support, and growing expectations that conditions will worsen rather than stabilize.

Workplace strain emerged as a central theme alongside physician distress. Many respondents reported that the future of emergency medicine felt “hopeless,” with limited perceived pathways to recovery. Women and younger physicians reported higher burnout rates, suggesting vulnerability concentrated within particular segments of the workforce.

The study reports measurable impacts on employment behavior. Approximately 10% of respondents had left emergency medicine, 48% had reduced their clinical hours, and 20% had taken time off. Together, these outcomes indicate not only impaired physician wellbeing but also capacity loss in a core 24-hour service.

The authors caution that burnout functions as a patient safety risk. They connect elevated distress to lower-quality care and argue that physician wellbeing is incompatible with the “Quintuple Aim” of building a sustainable health system.

Potential contributors included dysfunctional governance and hospital planning, mismatched expectations about emergency physicians’ roles, insufficient clinical support staff, high patient volumes, and barriers to meeting needs that extend beyond emergency medicine’s mandate.

The findings align with other national signals, including results from the Canadian Medical Association’s National Physician Health Survey and Canadian Institute for Health Information reporting that emergency department access for admitted patients and “left without being seen” rates have deteriorated.

The editorial accompanying the research argues that Canada’s long investment in emergency specialty training could be squandered if attrition accelerates. It calls for immediate protective actions for emergency department personnel, alongside accountability for access and wait-time outcomes across levels of government.

The study concludes that preventing emergency physician loss requires both near-term workplace interventions and longer-term system redesign—such as improving patient flow, strengthening geriatric emergency care, and expanding non-clinical staffing to address social determinants that drive repeat ED use.