Every day, our healthcare system spends $11 billion. As a practicing physician, it is clear that what our system measures and pays for – via diagnosis and billing codes, “allowable services” and myriad quality measures – is a reflection of both what and who it values.

Apart from acknowledging that social and structural drivers determine 70% of health outcomes, the Foundation highlighted the burden physicians face when tracking them

Stress from the coronavirus pandemic has made the outlook even worse, at least in the near term. When the Physicians Foundation, a nonprofit research organization, surveyed 2,504 doctors in May and June, 61 percent reported “often experiencing” burnout associated with financial and emotional strain. Two percent said they had retired because of the pandemic; another 2 percent had closed their practices.

In February 2020, as COVID-19 began to emerge as a real threat to public health, Dr. Folashade Afolabi, a pediatric pulmonologist in Dallas, had one thought: “This is going to be really, really bad.” Afolabi, 44, had been a resident when the swine flu hit the U.S. in 2009, so she knew she had to start preparing to protect her patients from COVID-19. What she didn’t expect was the effect the pandemic would have on her own mental health.

Since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was first officially declared, doctors, nurses and other clinicians have stepped up and shouldered burdens they never anticipated. They rose to the challenge magnificently, caring for the ill while protecting themselves and their families.

I am writing this in reflection before the third annual National Physician Suicide Awareness Day on September 17, 2021. We talk about physician suicide, but not enough. Not enough to prevent the more than one physician death by suicide daily.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), drawing on an 18-month collaboration with five other health care organizations, will publish a multi-specialty supplement on “Women in Medicine” in the September 2021 Pediatrics. This issue explores challenges to improving gender equity and strategies for advancing women in medicine.

The pandemic is significantly impacting the mental health and well-being of physicians. A new 2021 survey by the Physicians Foundation shows that 61 percent of physicians often experience feelings of burnout—a massive increase from 40 percent in 2018.

“The Physicians Foundation applauds the passage of the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act in the United States Senate, which would provide much needed support to help prevent physician suicide and burnout, as well as improve resources to reduce the barriers that currently hinder physicians and other health care professionals to seek mental health support.

COVID-19 may be the latest challenge to primary care physicians, but it’s just one of many threatening the profession, including the increased focus on specialty drug markets—if PCPs are left out of the equation.