AMA Data Show Physician Burnout Keeps Falling, With Stark Gaps by Specialty

Overview

• New AMA benchmarking data from nearly 19,000 physicians show burnout at 41.9% in 2025, down from 43.2% in 2024 and 48.2% in 2023.
• Rates are highest in emergency medicine at 49.8%, urological surgery at 49.5%, and hematology/oncology at 49.3%, and hospital-based fields perform worse on stress, satisfaction and burnout.
• Several specialties report far lower burnout, including infectious diseases at 23.3% and ophthalmology at 25.8%, with nephrology, dermatology and psychiatry also on the lower end.
• The report also tracks how doctors feel at work, with 56.2% saying they feel valued by their organization and men reporting higher rates than women.
• The AMA calls for specialty-specific steps to cut paperwork, noting the report did not analyze causes, and coverage points to AI scribe tools that capture visit notes as a way to ease EHR documentation and workload.