“I was shocked. I had to read it twice,” said Heather MacLean, who received a letter from her doctor last month. “Then my heart went out to him as well…he’s obviously feeling very stressed and burned out.” The letter, dated June 15, from Dr. Mitchell Stewart, included the doctor’s honest assessment of his workload and personal stress levels. “I inherited a very large practice…carrying well over 2,000 [patients],” Stewart wrote. “In recent years, the workload has steadily increased to the point where it is no longer manageable or sustainable… “People around me who care about me are increasingly commenting on the toll my work is taking… it’s not acceptable for me to come home at the end of a long, busy day and not be emotionally available for my family.. If I don’t make that change now and keep going at the rate I’m going, eventually I’m going to burn out.” “It’s a terrible situation for the patients involved and for the doctors as well,” says Dr. Padraig Casey, president of the Medical Society of PEI (CBC). The letter informs patients that they have been randomly selected and will continue to receive care until mid-August. Stewart consulted with Health PEI and the Canadian Medical Protective Association, according to the letter. The CMPA provides insurance coverage to physicians. The letter advises patients to register with the Department of Health to get a new family doctor. More than 24,000 people are on the waiting list, which continues to grow, according to figures on the province’s website. MacLean anticipates difficulty seeing a doctor in the future. “How would someone feel if they found out that if you’re not well, you have no choice but to go [hospital] clinics and clinics are emerging that are fully stressed to the max,” MacLean said. “It’s not a good feeling.” The president of the PEI Medical Society calls it a “terrible situation” for patients and doctors — the result of years of increasing workloads and now culminating with the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic”
“Doctors are extremely stressed, and with any stressed person sometimes you have to cut back on your work,” said Dr. Padraig Casey, chairman of the province’s medical society. “Sometimes we have to downsize to survive.” The medical society has seen an increase in doctors using consulting and educational services provided by the society, according to Casey. These services help doctors deal with stress and workload-related issues. Other programs also help physicians improve the management and efficiency of their professional practices. In the long term, family doctors need to move from “one-handed practices to team-based practices,” Casey said. “Unless doctors change the way we exercise … it’s really like rearranging the berths on the Titanic,” Casey said. Health PEI said family doctors’ offices will evolve into group practices, but the process will take years.
