The Current - ER doctors are burnt out and leaving the job

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

While being in an ER is tough for patients and their families, it's no easier for doctors. A new study reveals that Canadian ER doctors are at their limits with burn out, stress, and fatigue.  Many are leaving the profession altogether. We speak with three doctors who have worked in ER, including the lead author of the study, to hear what they're experiencing and what needs to change.

Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of the debaters, and while I love a funny fight, there's one thing that's not up for debate. The Stratford Festival is world-class theater right here in Canada. Whether you're a fan of Shakespeare, musicals, or classics like Death of a Salesman or Waiting for Godot, there's no better time to experience Canadian talent and no better place to see it than the Stratford Festival. So get your tickets now at Stratfordfestable.ca and experience world-class performance the whole family can enjoy. You know, we even taped the debaters there once, so I guess we're world-class now. This is a CBC podcast.

Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Sometimes you don't even want to go to the ER because, you know, it's such a weight. I was experiencing some loss of consciousness, which was terrifying. We found out that there was actually no doctor on. There was eventually one doctor on for over 70 patients. So we ended up actually leaving and taking our chances at home. My mother, who's 80. one years of age, spent 18 and a half hours in a hallway.

There were a lot of ambulances dropping people off and then having to wait so that they couldn't go out to their next call. It's a mess. If you've been to an emergency room recently, you may have a story like that to tell. In 2024, more than half a million Canadians left the emergency room before they could even see a doctor. Now, a new study takes stock of the toll on ER physicians. It finds that ER doctors are stressed out and burned out and that one in ten are scaling back hours or leaving the specialty altogether. Dr. Kirsten DeWitt is the lead author of the study, which is published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Dr. DeWitt is an emergency physician at Kingston Health Sciences Center and a professor at Queen's University where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Emergency Venus Thrombo Embellism.

You surveyed hundreds of ER physicians. Tell us a little bit about what you learned. We developed this survey at the start of the pandemic. So during the first two months of the pandemic, we enrolled Canadian emergency physicians into this longitudinal wellness survey. And we followed that up at the end of 2020 with a burnout survey. And we repeated that survey in 2022 and 2025. In 2025, we found that 10% of the people who answered the survey were no longer working as an emergency physician.

Of the people who were working as emergency physician, 65% were experiencing high burnout levels. Almost 50% had reduced the number of shifts that they were working in the emergency department and 20% had taken an extended leave of absence from the emergency medicine. Was this surprising to you, or did you expect to find this? We expected that the burnout levels were high

because that's what we feel every day when we're working in the emergency department. We didn't expect to find that burnout levels were higher in women physicians and younger physicians, which was concerning. And why do you think that is? This survey doesn't really answer the question of what causes that in women physicians and younger physicians. But it's concerning to us because if we're losing younger physicians from the profession, then that has an even greater impact on our specialty. What does this all mean for the health care system itself? What's the fallout of what you've discovered?

Well, the overriding sentiment from the study was that the healthcare system was broken and that the emergency department was carrying the burden of this broken healthcare system. Physicians described ever-increasing workloads in the emergency department and that overall the clinical care that's being provided to patients was deteriorating. Deteriorating because they are stressed or they're overworked? actually deteriorating because they didn't have the resources to provide the care. So they talked about all of the beds that the emergency department has being taken up by patients who are admitted to ward care.

So when emergency patients come into the waiting room, there's no bed or private area to see those patients and assess them. So in essence, the emergency department's being taken away from emergency physicians and nurses and patients and become a ward. So they didn't have anywhere private to examine patients or take personal histories,

which leads to inadequate care because you can't ask very personal questions in a corridor or in a waiting room. Patients couldn't be adequately examined because they couldn't be exposed properly to have that examination. All resources really were less now than they have been in the past.

Have you ever thought about leaving your role in the ER. I think probably all emergency physicians in Canada today are thinking about leaving their role. I think about it and a lot of others do. And one of the other things we found in the survey is that the respondents really had focused very hard to find mechanisms to cope to allow them to go back in to do another shift every day. And so one of the ways of coping was actually reducing the number of shifts to allow themselves

to reset and take care of themselves. so they could face another shift in the emergency department. A second way was taking some time off the emergency department. And then a lot of people talked about taking on a different role, something like administration or education, to balance the time that they were spending in clinical care. And then, unfortunately, other ways were detachment and acceptance. Okay.

Dr. Kristen DeWitt, stay with me. I have two more people to bring into this discussion now. Dr. Heather Murray is a professor of emergency medicine at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. She's a former ER physician. And Dr. Brittany Ellis is an emergency room physician and a specialist in the care of older adults in the emergency department. And she is in Saskatoon. Dr. Murray, I'll start with you. You stopped working in the emergency room in 2024.

Why did you leave? Well, I mean, first of all, I would say it was not my plan. I imagined myself working until my retirement. And over the 30 years that I was working in the emergency department, I witnessed a pretty steady deterioration in working conditions. And that was most noticeable, I would say, over the last 10 years. And it got to the point that the mental and physical toll of caring for patients in that overcrowded environment was getting to be too much. And I decided that it was actually shortening my life. It wasn't sustainable. And I couldn't keep doing it.

I want to talk a little bit more about that, but I'm curious why you think it deteriorated in those 10 years. Why did it get so much worse? Well, I think it's been a consistent drip, drip, drip of a tap. We are holding patients longer and longer. And, you know, our department is filled with patients who are waiting for beds in the hospital that aren't available. And so when you arrive to work and you work in a 45 or 50 bed emergency, seat apartment and you have two free stretchers. You have 15 people in the waiting room and you have a pile of ambulances rolling in. You've got to care for all of those people and some of them are

very sick in non-traditional spaces. So you do all these workarounds. You look after people in chairs. You go out to the waiting room. You go over to the emergence to the ambulance stretchers. And these workarounds and the distress of worrying about all these patients that you can't get to where you need to have them to offer the care that you can provide. I mean, that's kind of soul-destroying to know that you can provide excellent care and not be able to do it. And you say that actually felt as though it was shortening your life? Yeah, I think it was taking a pretty significant toll on my mental and physical health. and I had an opportunity to change roles. And so I took it.

And look, I didn't take this decision lightly. This was the most difficult thing I've ever done. You know, I deeply loved being an emergency physician actively and providing emergency medical care, but I didn't think it was sustainable personally. Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of the debaters. And while I love a funny fight, there's one thing that's not up for debate. The Stratford Festival is world-class theater right here in

Canada. Whether you're a fan of Shakespeare, musicals, or classics like Death of a Salesman or Waiting for Godot, there's no better time to experience Canadian talent and no better place to see it than the Stratford Festival. So get your tickets now at straffordfestable.ca and experience world-class performance the whole family can enjoy. You know, we even tape the debaters there once, so I guess we're world-class now. Canada's indigenous stories aren't just being told. They're being reclaimed. Join through the history of words in telling our twisted histories, join the vibrant weekly conversations on Unreserved. Uvalon, Uqa, Uqa, Uruvić, Inuit, Unikang, Tutsasaw Kattelmilmil. Plus experience

investigations that refuse to be forgotten, like Cooper Island and missing and murdered. Listen to the full collection now, wherever you get your podcast. Dr. Ellis, you continue to be an ER doctor, but you've cut ten. down your time in the ER itself. Why did you do that? I think I can just echo similar reasons to Dr. Murray. I, as you highlighted, I'm a specialist in geriatric care, care of older adults in the ED. And, you know, going back to the question around what's causing this, well, one of the big contributing factors is likely aging. And we've known that there's an aging demographic for quite some time. And with my training, I also know inherently the risks of the emergency department for older adults.

And so when I walk into a shift, or my colleagues walk into a shift and were met with hallways lined with older adults who are 80 and 90 years old, who we know are suffering harm as a result of their long stays in our departments. And we know that their system changes that needed to be made 10 years ago and continue to need to be made. it's really demoralizing. And that's just kind of the start of it. You know, I walk into a shift. I love being a doctor, an emerged doctor, and my heart sinks. And I leave the shift with a similar feeling.

And it was taking a really big toll on my mental health and beginning to impact my family and the wellness of the people I love. So it was time to look back. You've got young children. How are you able to go home after a shift, as you just described, and care for them? Yeah, and that was exactly it. You know, you come home and there was no space left for the things I deeply loved, including my children. You know, I felt irritable. I wasn't sleeping well. I felt like I wasn't being the parent I know I was capable of. And that was a really big and important part of my decision to cut back and protect myself and in what way protect my family. Dr. Murray, who do you blame in all of this? Well, I think the message that I would send, out is that within the emergency department, we have done everything we can to try to adapt.

I mean, we are adaptable by nature. We are creative problem solvers. And we have problem solved as much as we can within the walls of the emergency department by front-loading tests, providing other pathways, creating non-traditional care spaces. The problem lies outside the emergency department. And I think that the accountability lies with hospital leaders and leaders to try to pay more attention to this problem to try to understand the solutions. There are solutions. The Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians has put out numerous statements. There's a report that has come out called ED Power. There are a whole list of options and strategies and directions to go, but we can't implement them inside the emergency department and

within the emergency medicine leadership. Dr. Ellis, though I'm curious, we heard there from Dr. Murray that, you know, she talked about the hospitals and about governments. But for you, is it hospital administration that needs to iron this out and figure out solutions, or is it more funding from various levels of government? I think it's both. Absolutely, there needs to be more long-term care beds. Absolutely, there needs to be more hospital beds. But there also needs to be, you know, greater access to community care. So patients can move from our department into an acute care bed if that's what's needed and then back into their home environment with the appropriate levels of care.

And when they can't do that, when they can't move through in an efficient manner, that means they stay in the hospital. They're admitted for longer periods of time. And so our patients in our department have nowhere to go. I also do think hospital leadership needs to be more accountable. There needs to be somebody overseeing the flow of patients across our entire hospital system, not just in our department. not just upon discharge, but really looking at it from an overview lens and really looking at what are the care shortages in the community that can help the hospitals take better care of patients

and can help patients ultimately have better outcomes. Dr. DeWitt, I know you've been sitting by and listening, and we heard Dr. Murray say that there's a whole host of solutions that could be implemented that could make the difference here. For you, what are some of the key things that could spell change for the hospital system? I think exactly what you've already heard. I think at all levels we need a lot more funding in the healthcare system. We need much bigger planning for hugely increasing long-term care beds, hugely increasing hospital beds and attracting and keeping staff. And that goes for nurses as well as physicians. Definitely in the emergency because we're always understaffed in the emergency and it's been like that for the past six or seven years, but right across the hospital. there needs to be a complete overhaul of the system. Dr. Murray, what more would you like to see and how quickly?

Because sometimes it feels as though it's this giant beast. And there's suggestions that people are bearing their heads in the sand and ignoring the giant beast that is what is the solution. But for you, what would be the two first things we could do today to help? Well, I think that there needs to be some accountability, some system accountability, for the measurable metrics that we can track. You know, we know and we see in the reporting that the emergency department wait times across the country are increasing year by year, that the boarding times, the amount of time that people spend in the emergency department waiting for hospital beds, those are increasing across the board year after year. I think that accountability at an institutional and provincial level around those metrics.

I mean, we see those metrics, we know those metrics. And I think there is a myth circulating that the problem is because patients with minor illnesses are coming to the emergency department. You know, the myth of the sore throat being the problem. The sore throat is not the problem patient with the sore throat. The accountability metrics are focused on boarding time, time waiting to go up to the hospital and wait times and left where they're being seen. the number of people who leave our emergency department waiting rooms because they become discouraged about the wait times. Accountability around those metrics and funding focused on those solutions, I think is the thing that can be done in the video.

We often hear, Dr. Murray, you're right, that because there's a, you know, a lack of family physicians, people are ending up in the emergency room to deal with things that could have been dealt with family physicians. So you're saying that you don't think that plays into this? The evidence has shown year after year that the major driver for emergency department crowding is admitted patients. And governments across the country have implemented all kinds of solutions, virtual care alternate pathways for people with minor illness who have barriers accessing primary care. And yet year after year are fundamental metrics around patient throughput are deteriorating. So I think that, you know, it is true that patients increasingly don't have access to primary care and there are barriers to care, but the driver of crowding in the emergency departments is admitted patients. Dr. Ellis, if you could have the ear of federal and provincial leaders, maybe hospital administration as well, what would you tell them?

I think just echoing what we're hearing that, you know, we need investments in care, in long-term care, in community care. We also need investments in our hospitals to ensure there's enough bed and appropriate care for patients to receive good care. And finally, I think looking specifically at older adults, you know, they represent 20 to 30 percent of our ED populations, and they suffer increasing harm as a risk as like during their care experience. And so ensuring that we have the ability to provide them with the best care so that doesn't lead to long hospital stays and that they can move back into their environment safely. Dr. Murray, you left the emergency room a couple of years ago and are now teaching. What do you tell your students about, I mean, they probably ask, why don't you work in the ER anymore? What do you tell them?

When people ask me why I don't work in the emergency department anymore, I tell them that it was shortening my life and that it was just becoming too difficult for me to work there. Having said that, I mean, you know, my message to students and learners and people going into emergency medicine is thank you. This is fundamentally hugely important to our country, to our patients. I really believe passionately in the importance of high quality emergency medical care, and we need people to do it. You know, I have a lot of guilt and a sense of abandonment about leaving that work. On the other hand, I put a lot of time in, and I'm still contributing in a different way. So I hope that I'm still making a mark.

And are you hopeful, but just before we go, that we will see some change in some kind of future that you're happy with? I'm always hopeful. I have devoted, you know, my professional life to high quality emergency care in Canada. And I continue to believe in the importance of it for everyone across the country. Yeah. Okay. Thank you all three. Thank you for this. Thank you. Thanks so much. Dr. Kirsten Dewitt is the lead author of the study out today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. She's an emergency physician and a thrombosis physician at Kingston Health Sciences Center and the Canada Research Chair in Emergency Venus Thromboembolism.

Dr. Heather Murray is a former ER physician. She's now a professor of emergency medicine at Queens University. And Dr. Brittany Ellis is an emergency room physician in Saskatoon. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.