What does it cost when faculty walk out the door? It has been estimated that burnout-driven physician turnover could cost between $15 to $55 million over just two years. Medicine talks constantly about burnout, but far less about what actually keeps people from leaving.

Dr. Amy Locke, a family medicine physician and co-director of the Resiliency Center at the University of Utah, joins MedEd Insights to discuss her team's study in Academic Medicine. Rather than relying on intent-to-leave surveys, the researchers measured faculty communication, engagement, and well-being across 19 departments (2,084 faculty). They then compared each department's scores with how many faculty actually left over the following academic year.

The effect was large. A roughly 20% higher score on a combined wellness index was associated with a 32% lower turnover rate, and the index explained more than half the variation in turnover between departments. Well-being carried the most weight. Women faculty reported significantly lower well-being and communication scores than men, though the gender difference in turnover itself did not reach statistical significance.

In this episode:

• Why intent to leave is a flawed stand-in for actual turnover
• Measuring what's working, not just what's broken
• Why well-being deserves top priority when budgets are tight
• What the gender gap in well-being may be signaling

• Why retention is built through culture, not a single program

Article Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40168550/