Are vacation, exercise, and sobriety the key to a happy HCP lifestyle? So where exactly do pain practitioners fall on the physician happiness scale? Medscape’s 2019 report shows that of 29 HCP specialties, rheumatologists report being happiest outside of work at 65%. A bit lower on the life satisfaction scale are family medicine practitioners at 52%, anesthesiologists and PM&R providers equally standing at 51%, and psychiatrists at 49%. While pain and palliative doctors are not called out specifically, the report shares that 40% of all physicians are “very happy” outside of work. Vacation days may be the key to lifestyle happiness outside of work. Breaking physicians down by gender, men report “high” or “very high” levels of self-esteem (61% compared to 47%). An overwhelming majority of both sexes shared that being a physician positively affects their self-esteem. A few more interesting highlights: the majority (55%) of physicians participating in the survey said they are married to someone outside of the healthcare profession; only 18% are married to another physician, and 52% overall described their marriage as “very good.” The majority (43%) of respondents said they spend about 3 to 4 weeks each year vacationing and 58% exercise between 2 and 5 times a week. Over 50% stay away from alcohol, with 26% having less than 1 alcoholic drink per week and 21% not imbibing at all. Just over 15,000 physicians participated in the survey, which took place July through October 2018. Women made up 38% of the participants. Source
