Chapter 14.  Work–Life Balance and Burnout 221

­nonacademic practicing surgeons who represent prior gen- erations. In the future it will be paramount, in light of the physician and surgeon shortage predicted for the coming decades, to direct appropriate attention to surgeons’ lifestyle issues in order to ensure sufficient recruitment and retention of future generations of surgeons.

The purpose of this chapter is (1) to review the available evidence on work–life imbalance as experienced by currently practicing surgeons, (2) to analyze the adverse consequences of work–life imbalance and burnout, and (3) to describe potential strategies to address these issues at a personal and professional level.

Work–Life Imbalance Among

Surgeons: Magnitude of the Problem

Direct Evidence

In the literature, there is ample direct evidence for a significant imbalance between work and life perceived by a substantial proportionofcurrentlypracticingsurgeons.Inarecentnational survey of surgeons (in all specialties and practice settings), 33% reported that they did not achieve work–life balance.23 This perception was independent of gender,age,marital status, presence of children,clinical practice setting (academic or non- academic),surgical subspecialty,and practice location (rural vs. urban). Fifty-nine percent of the queried surgeons believed that they worked too many hours and, of those, 59% felt that the area most frequently affected by working too many hours was“family life.”23 According to that survey,respondents spent an average of 20 h per week with family and friends and only 4 h per week with hobbies and recreation. Hence, it was not surprising that 56% were dissatisfied with the amount of time available for family,and 81% were dissatisfied with the amount of time available for hobbies and recreation.This problem was further compounded by the fact that from an average of 28 days per year of available vacation, only 20 days per year