Medscape's "Striving for Balance in Your Specialty: Medscape Family Physician Mental Health & Well-Being Report 2025" found that family physicians need more support to find personal happiness and achieve work-life balance.
The report surveyed 5,741 physicians across more than 29 specialties between July 1 and Oct. 2, 2024.
Here are five things to know from the report:
1. Few family physicians felt that their personal lives have improved over the last three years. Only 24% of respondents said their overall happiness had improved in the last three years, while 40% said it stayed the same and 35% said it worsened.
2. About half of family physicians in the survey said they felt burned out and about one-quarter experienced depression.
3. Sixty-four percent of family physicians said they would accept a pay cut for improved work-life balance.
4. Millennial family physicians saw slightly more improvement in their work-life balance than older generations of physicians. Of millennial physicians, 29% said their work-life balance had improved, compared with 24% of their older colleagues.
5. Female family physicians reported less improvement to their work-life balance than their male counterparts. Of female family physicians in the report, 43% said their work-life balance had worsened, compared to 30% of male family physicians.