Medical Students Abusing Alcohol More Than Peers

New research from Mayo Clinic has found that medical students are more likely to abuse alcohol than their peers who are not in medical school. This is especially the case, say the researchers, if they are young, single and under a high debt load.

“Our findings clearly show there is reason for concern, ” says Liselotte Dyrbye, M.D., in the March 14, 2016 news release. Dr. Dyrbye is a Mayo Clinic internist and senior author of the paper. “We recommend institutions pursue a multifaceted solution to address related issues with burnout, the cost of medical education and alcohol abuse.”

According to the news release, “Mayo researchers surveyed 12, 500 medical students, and one-third of those students responded. Approximately 1, 400 of that subgroup experienced clinical alcohol abuse or dependence. Nationally, that translates to about one-third of those responding, compared to only 16 percent of peers not in medical school, and double the rate of alcohol abuse or dependence of surgeons, U.S. physicians or the general public based on earlier research by this team.”

Burnout factors such as emotional exhaustion or feelings of depersonalization were all highly associated with alcohol abuse or dependence among the medical students. Three other factors were independently associated:

• A younger age than most peers in medical school
• Being unmarried
• Amount of educational debt

No statistical difference was found between differing years of medical school or between men and women.

“Researchers say the average cost of medical school from 1995 to 2014 increased by 209 percent at private colleges and 286 percent at public schools. They say physicians graduating with a medical degree in 2014 had an average of $180, 000 in educational debt.”

Dr. Dyrbye told OTW, “Medical student wellness is a shared responsibility of individual trainees and medical schools. There is not a one sized solution that will work for everyone. Rather, strategies to reduce burnout and alcohol abuse/dependence should leverage available resources, be grounded in best available data, and include a variety of approaches. Medical schools should include student wellness curricula to help students understand the prevalence and consequences of mental health problems among physicians in-training, self-assess their well-being, and develop approaches to enhance their resilience, manage their debt, and seek help when needed. In addition, schools should work to identify and address factors in the learning environment that are adding unnecessary stress and contributing to burnout. As our study found that educational debt may increase the risk of alcohol abuse/dependence a national response is needed to curve the dramatic increase in medical student tuition.”

“Alcohol abuse/dependence is a significant problem among American physicians. Earlier work published by the authors (AM J Addictions) involving >7000 US physicians found that dermatologist and orthopedic surgeons had the highest prevalence of alcohol abuse/dependence. Alcohol abuse/dependence was strongly and independently associated with specialty choice with orthopedic surgeons having twice the likelihood of alcohol abuse/dependence than general internal medicine physicians—a finding that persisted after adjusting for a variety of demographic and practice characteristics.”

“Among physicians, alcohol abuse/dependence is associated with burnout, depression, suicidal ideation, lower quality of life, lower career satisfaction, and recent medical errors.”