Sources of Satisfaction: A Second Administration of the Program Director Satisfaction Survey

Abstract

Q T D m m c t s j C c n the past decade, the short half-life of leaders in cademic medicine has been an important issue, but esidency program directors have been of particular nterest because of their roles in developing and mainaining a high-quality academic environment, ensuring ontinuous cycles of program and process improveent, and monitoring the development and well-being f physicians-in-training from the time of recruitment o graduation. Program directors have short job duraions and high burnout associated with administrative hassles,” long work hours, dissatisfaction with promoion opportunities, and concerns about resources. In 1996, 34% of internal medicine program directors eported some degree of “burnout,” defined as “the loss f enjoyment or enthusiasm for a job, so that an indiidual is no longer able to devote emotional energy to ts accomplishment.” Among this group of 262 proram directors, a 3-year cohort study demonstrated a 9% turnover and mean job duration of 2.4 years. urnover was highly associated with overall job satisaction. Program director characteristics that were inependently predictive of job turnover included low atisfaction with colleague relationships, high percentges of administrative work time, perceptions of the job