Mass General Brigham primary care doctors file to unionize, citing burnout
BOSTON - Primary care doctors at the Mass General Brigham health care system are filing to unionize.
Doctors unionizing
The doctors say that the corporatization of health care, physician access issues, and systemic challenges are some of the reasons they have decided to unionize. The organizers say that a union would allow them to have more resources, staffing, and support.
"I've been a primary care doctor for 25 years and things have gotten more and more impossible as a primary care doctor. More difficult to get through a day of work without being completely stressed out and more difficult to take good care of patients and there isn't any bargaining as it is now with the hospitals," said Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary care physician with the group.
He says that primary care physicians are experiencing severe burnout, and quitting frequently due to the large workload.
"The medical system doesn't work very well without primary care doctors, we're like the glue that makes it hold together for everybody for all these specialists. The specialists can't do what the specialists do, their endoscopies, their knee replacements, all the things that make a lot of money for the hospital without the primary care doctors," Dr. Grinspoon said.
"Every problem that doesn't have a solution ends up trickling down to the primary care doctors. We end up not just being doctors, we're social workers. We're care managers. We're psychiatrists. We're liver specialists."
There are around 400 primary care physicians associated with the Mass General Brigham group, including doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
"It's literally the best thing for doctors. It's the best thing for patients. And actually, the union is the best thing for these hospital administrators as well because the current situation is just not sustainable," Dr. Grinspoon said.
If successful the union will be led by the Doctors Council Union, the oldest and largest union of physicians in the United States.
Mass General Brigham statement
Mass General Brigham released a statement that acknowledged the stress that their PCPs are under.
"We share the common goal of offering world-class comprehensive care for our patients and believe we can achieve this by working together in direct partnership rather than through representatives in a process that can lead to conflict and potentially risk the continuity of patient care," a spokesperson said in the statement.