Factors explaining career satisfaction among psychiatrists and surgeons in Canada

The career satisfaction of specialists is affected by many variables ranging from family responsibilities, stress, the quality of services and facilities available to patients, professional rewards, and how the work is organized.

To articulate models that explain a substantial portion of the variance associated with career satisfaction among surgeons and psychiatrists in Canada.

Of 4958 eligible physicians across Canada, 2810 (56.7%) completed a 12-page survey between January and March 2004, following which the responding 148 surgeons and 231 psychiatrists were selected for this study. We checked response bias and found it was negligible. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to record cumulative R2, Standardized beta, and significance levels as each predictor was entered. We applied weighting factors to reflect the actual physician population in Canada.

The models explained 90.4% of the variance in career satisfaction for surgeons and 81.0% of the variance in career satisfaction for psychiatrists. The explanatory variables consisted of distress and coping, role in community activities, access to and quality of health care services, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, workload, and organizational structure.

The study demonstrated that variance associated with career satisfaction can be explained using various factors reported directly by physicians. The study also confirmed that relative differences in the importance of these factors do occur among specialties. Surgeons prefer to delegate more responsibility in the management of their practices on an informal basis, whereas psychiatrists prefer to be more involved in the management of their practices and use more formal structures.