The Burden of Physicians’ Administrative Workload Affects Clinical and Scientific Mentoring

Trust has always been considered as a fundamental attribute of medical profession that gives physicians the foundation to build their professional relationships on. Trust has also been critical in a patient's compliance to treatment and adherence to follow-up appointments. In the same vein, young students on clinical rotations or medical graduates who begin their residency have to trust their physician mentors with their graduate and postgraduate training. Unfortunately, most trainees have heard from their faculty members that the increasing administrative burdens associated with their clinical and academic roles are often exhaustive and redundant (Woolhandler and Himmelstein, 2014). A vast majority of institutions is operated by staff without medical education (Jauhar, 2017). These trends typically originate from stricter insurance regulations on spending and complex compensation algorithms that require immense billing-related activities in our US multi-payer healthcare system (Jiwani et al., 2014). In addition, many physicians are part of different academic committees and have duties to maintain and acquire funding for scientific research.