Physicians on the front lines of health care today are sometimes described as going to battle. It’s an apt metaphor. Physicians, like combat soldiers, often face a profound and unrecognized threat to their well-being: moral injury. Read the rest of the opinion piece here.

There is an epidemic of physician burnout in the United States, and it has a pervasive negative effect on all aspects of medical care, including your career satisfaction. Read the rest of the article here.

Improving the work life of physicians to help them avoid burnout is such an important goal that researchers are now calling it the “fourth aim” of health care, next to improving population health, enhancing the patient experience, and reducing costs. Clearly, it's a big deal. Read more.

A new study has found that, between 2011 and 2014, the burnout rate among family physicians increased from 51 percent to 63 percent.1 Yes, you read that right. Nearly two-thirds of us are experiencing burnout. Read the rest of the article here.

In October 1995, Steven Miles, MD, a gerontologist and then professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, was preparing to teach a class, when he learned that one of the school's medical students had committed suicide.

"I was the third lecture that day and nobody had talked about it," he said. Read the rest of the piece here.

In this part, we look into the legal issues raised by state boards' probing of diagnoses and treatment. To this day, so-called "probing," or overly expansive questions, continue to be asked about mental health in dozens of state medical board licensure and renewal forms. In fact, questions related to mental health and substance use doubled on state medical licensure applications between 1996-2006, according to Sarah Polfliet, MD, a former forensic fellow in the Psychiatry and the Law Program at the University of California San Francisco. Read the rest of the piece here.

The initial physician licensure application for Texas includes the following question: "Within the past 5 years, have you been diagnosed with or treated for any: psychotic disorder, delusional disorder, mood disorder, major depression, personality disorder or any other mental condition which impaired or does impair your behavior, judgment or ability to function in school or work." Texas's medical license procedure complies with recommendations by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) and other stakeholders to focus on impairment rather than disease. However, its 5-year window clashes with the idea of targeting only current problems. Read the rest of the piece here.