PURPOSE

This study aims to investigate medical physicist job status during the COVID-19 pandemic in California and collect community feedback on strategies to alleviate job burnout and stress to improve overall work-life balance.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

The online survey platform SurveyMonkey was used to generate a 14-question survey, enabling data collection from a large pool of respondents. The 14 survey questions were designed to assess respondent demographics, measuring eight different variables related to medical physicist job status, and collecting feedback regarding burnout and job stress. The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Southern California Chapter Education Committee emailed out the survey link to all AAPM Southern California and Northern California chapter members, requesting that each person provide a single response. All responses were anonymized, and data were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods.

RESULTS

At the end of a 6-week collection period (January 5, 2022, to February 18, 2022), a total of 97 responses (28.7%) were collected out of 338 invitations. Our analysis results show that "Burnout Level" is strongly and positively correlated with "Leaving Job" (Correlation Coefficient CC = 0.66, p < 0.05), "Work Environment" (CC = 0.54, p < 0.05), and "Stress Level" (CC = 0.70, p < 0.05); it is moderately and negatively correlated with "Salary Satisfaction" (CC = -0.49, p < 0.05) and "Job Satisfaction" (CC = -0.48, p < 0.05). Qualitative results revealed that the seven most common recommendation categories to alleviate job burnout and stress from respondents were: adequate staffing, culture of recognition, salary increase, team building, structure and organization, flexibility of remote working, and physicist involvement in decision-making.

CONCLUSION

This study provides an overview of the job status of California-based medical physicists during the COVID-19 pandemic, offers valuable insights into managing job-related stress and burnout. These findings underscore the need for tailored interventions and policy considerations to alleviate burnout, enhance job satisfaction.