Electronic Health Records’ Awful Toll on Doctors

Burnout and disillusionment are everywhere among medical doctors.  Electronic Health records are just the latest burden.

“My young colleague slumping in the chair in my office survived the student years, then three years of internship and residency and is now a full-time practitioner and teacher. The despair I hear comes from being the highest-paid clerical worker in the hospital: For every one hour we spend cumulatively with patients, studies have shown, we spend nearly two hours on our primitive Electronic Health Records, or “E.H.R.s,” and another hour or two during sacred personal time. But we are to blame. We let this happen to our trainees, to ourselves.”