Schedule Control, Not Just Fewer Hours: What a 2024 Study Found
By FairShare Team · 3 min read
Published by FairShare: · 3 min read
Topic: Leadership, Culture, and Fairness
Audience: anesthesiologist, leader
Type: study-brief
A 2024 multi-institution study published in Annals of Internal Medicine set out to test something specific: not whether physicians were working too many hours, but whether they had control over those hours — and whether that control, independent of workload, was associated with burnout.
The study surveyed more than 2,100 physicians across five academic and 14 non-academic medical centers between November 2022 and December 2023, using a novel multicomponent measure of "work control" covering patient load, team composition, hiring input, clinical schedule, and workload. The results were consistent: physicians who reported poor control over their clinical schedule, workload, patient load, or team composition had significantly higher rates of burnout and were more likely to report intent to reduce clinical hours or leave their organization.
The achievable lever
Notably, 74.6% of respondents said they had adequate influence over setting their own clinical schedule — the highest-scoring control domain in the study — while just 49% felt they had adequate influence over hiring decisions. That gap matters: schedule input is one of the more achievable levers available to a department, compared to something like hiring authority, which is often outside an individual physician's control entirely.
The American Medical Association, commenting on the findings, put it plainly: giving physicians more say over their jobs and workdays may help offset burnout and its downstream effects, including turnover and reduced clinical hours.
For anesthesiology specifically — a specialty defined by call schedules, block time, and coverage rotations — schedule control isn't a soft perk. It's one of the only concretely adjustable variables in an otherwise fixed environment of patient demand and OR availability. This is exactly why FairShare treats flexible, fair scheduling as a starting point rather than a downstream feature.
Source
- Sinsky CA, et al. Association of Work Control With Burnout and Career Intentions Among U.S. Physicians: A Multi-institution Study. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2024.
Sources
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Association of Work Control With Burnout and Career Intentions Among U.S. Physicians: A Multi-institution Study
(2024-11-26)
· Class: primary
· Tier: 1
Surveyed >2,100 physicians across 19 medical centers (Nov 2022–Dec 2023) using a multicomponent measure of work control; poor control over clinical schedule, workload, patient load, or team composition was independently associated with higher burnout and intent to reduce hours or leave; 74.6% had adequate schedule influence (highest domain) vs 49% for hiring input.
Population: U.S. physicians across 5 academic and 14 non-academic medical centers
Limitations: Cross-sectional; physician general population, not anesthesia-specific; self-reported control and burnout; academic/non-academic mix may not represent all practices.