Dear physician colleagues,

My dad recently decided to hang up his white coat after a successful 48-year career practicing medicine. Despite still enjoying seeing patients, the reality of being a physician today took its toll. The rising personal and financial costs of practicing, coupled with declining physician reimbursement rates, made it no longer financially worthwhile to continue.

71,000 physicians left medicine in 2021-2022. What’s more, surveys suggest this trend is particularly impacting younger physicians who are just starting out. Over half of medical students no longer want to practice medicine as their career. This should alarm us all: We need doctors who are smart, dedicated, and committed to the profession for the long term.

No one can deny that medicine has become more onerous, bureaucratic, and less enjoyable over the past decade. As a practicing emergency physician myself, I’ve seen discussions dramatically shift amongst friends and colleagues, particularly as most of us have become employees: Is this hospital offering me fair compensation? Should I negotiate for a higher salary? Can anyone help me deal with this frustrating EHR, this inane prior auth, or this medical board complaint? Should I get out of medicine altogether? What are my alternative career options?

These are complicated questions, and I’ve asked myself what I can do to help answer them. What I think we need – and yes, this is a very doctor-y approach — is two-fold:

• More accurate and transparent data on our jobs and salaries to help us better navigate our options and make more informed career decisions.
• More forums for connection and opportunities to exchange useful information, advice, and support with one another.

Making an account on Offcall is free. We are proud to be financially backed by dozens of physicians across the country who share our belief in the need for a new platform that drives positive change for our profession. At the get-go, we are building:

• Salary and work-life transparency tools: We are compiling the largest and most accurate physician-led database on what actually constitutes a good or bad job so physicians can better advocate for ourselves. This includes comprehensive compensation metrics, as well as all the other details that matter in choosing a job: How many patients do you see? How many hours are you actually working? What do your benefits look like? Is your administration helpful or toxic?
  
  Our Salary Tool will be accessible and beneficial to all physicians – and at launch, we’re going to initially concentrate on specialties with the most urgent issues around burnout, pay, and job stability: Primary Care, Emergency Medicine, and Pediatrics.
  
  
• “Being a Doctor” articles and resources: Physicians have unique financial challenges in our personal and professional lives – from student loan debt to starting a family and saving for retirement. We lack high quality and accessible information about these topics, so Offcall is providing practical, high-yield information geared specifically to physicians (sign up for our How I Doctor podcast to get started!)
  
  
• Connection and networking: Practicing medicine has become increasingly lonely. Whether it’s stroke neurologists talking about how to improve outcomes or hospitalists sharing their best financial advice, we need a place to connect, ask questions, learn from one another, and bring the joy of connection and collaboration back to the profession.
  

This is only the beginning. Over time, we plan to add additional career-navigation tools that physicians cannot find elsewhere – for example, tools to help us compare and understand employment and financial options, to better advocate for ourselves, and to more easily find professional opportunities tailored to our preferences. Through it all, here’s what will set Offcall apart: Our commitment to physician-led data and our focus on both the professional and personal aspects of physicians’ careers.

It’s my profound hope that Offcall can improve physicians’ lives and careers and help make practicing medicine enjoyable again. Sign up for Offcall here — it’s free to make an account, and you can share your data 100% confidentially with your colleagues. By joining Offcall, you’re not just improving your own career, you’re also helping to reshape the future of medicine for all of us.

Sincerely,

Graham Walker, MD

Offcall Co-founder