Researchers north of the border find Canadian emergency departments in crisis—still

Burnout levels among Canada’s emergency physicians are as high now as they were at the height of the COVID pandemic, according to a study published July 27 in CMAJ, the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Of 351 ER doctors who completed a survey and were still working in the profession as of January 2025, some 229—65%—scored themselves elevated on either emotional exhaustion, depersonalization or both, emergency physician Kerstin de Wit, MD, and colleagues report. 

The authors further found that self-reported burnout levels remained unchanged across surveys conducted in 2020, 2022 and 2025.

Respondents pointed to “a broken healthcare system, unrealistic societal expectations and insurmountable workplace challenges” as reasons for their burnout. 

The consequences were most pronounced in a 50% rate of reduced work hours and a 1-in-10 rate of quitting the profession.

Other common coping mechanisms have included modifying work roles, changing healthcare institutions and taking time off from emergency medicine. 

Women and younger participants reported higher levels of burnout, as did emergency physicians who had reduced their clinical hours.

ER visit counts only move in 1 direction  

In their interpretation section, the researchers point out that the number of Canadian emergency department visits continues to increase yearly.

Given the combination of this fact with the consistently high burnout rates, it’s no surprise de Wit and co-authors cite 2023 CMAJ commentary stating that “Canadian emergency departments are in crisis now and for the foreseeable future.”

Physician burnout “should no longer be considered a pandemic phenomenon,” de Wit et al. note in the present study. 

“Emergency physician loss is a crisis for the Canadian healthcare system,” they write, “and our results suggest attrition to the emergency workforce, which in turn exacerbates burnout among those who stay.”

To address “serious gaps in patient care” caused by the crisis, de Wit and colleagues call for increasing patient capacity in both hospitals and long-term care facilities as well as “holding provincial, regional and institutional leaders to account” and prioritizing emergency care in the national policymaking agenda. 

They also point stakeholders to the EM:POWER initiative led by the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians.

‘This would have happened with or without the pandemic’   

In coverage of the study by Canadian Occupational Safety, de Wit tells a reporter she doesn’t believe the current situation has anything to do with COVID or its aftermath. 

“What we’re experiencing now would have happened whether we had the pandemic or not,” she says, noting that ERs were already overcrowded as far back as 2016 and 2017. 

de Wit adds that the study’s findings echo her own firsthand experiences in emergency medicine. 

“We’re working much harder,” she says. “The pressures are much, much greater on every shift. We’re just exhausted.”

The journal study is posted in full for free, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has additional coverage.