Too many specific theories about physician burnout can cloud the real issue and allow healthcare leaders to circle around the ‘elephant in the room’.

The cause of physician burnout isn’t just the bureaucracy surrounding electronic health records, Medicare regulations, the chronic disease epidemic or any other single item.

Instead, it is simply this: Healthcare today has no clear definition of what a physician is. We are more or less suddenly finding ourselves on a playing field, tackled and hollered at, without knowing what sport we are playing and what the rules are.

Historically, physicians have been viewed as professionals and also, more lately, as skilled workers. But we are more and more viewed and treated as neither. Therein lies the problem.