Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, a professor at Harvard Medical School and founder of the global health nonprofit Partners in Medicine, has died at age 62, according to NPR.

Emergency medicine physicians have the highest rates of burnout among all physician specialties, according to a Medscape's 2022 Physician Burnout and Depression report. 

About 26 percent of public health and preventive medicine physicians are burnt out, the lowest level of any specialty, according to Medscape's 2022 Public Health and Preventive Medicine Physician Lifestyle and Burnout Report. 

About half of infectious disease physicians reported being burned out last year, according to Medscape's Infectious Disease Physicians Lifestyle & Burnout Report published Feb. 18.

The statements some state medical boards adopted to prevent physicians from spreading COVID-19 misinformation are now threatened by political pressure to restrict medical boards' authority in this area, NPR reported Feb. 14. 

Physician care varies widely, with some physicians much more likely to deliver proper care than others, even those working in the same area or organization, according to an analysis published Jan. 28 in JAMA Health Forum.

Healthcare systems have started residency programs and partnerships to address workforce shortages.

Primary care physicians are the gateway to more expensive specialists, and health systems face intensifying  competition for them thanks to insurers, retailers, investment firms and tech start-ups, Bloomberg reports. 

Healthcare organizations and physicians are under tremendous pressure. In addition to the burden of the pandemic, providers must comply with more regulation and provide an improved patient experience while operating with lower margins. Physicians today have more responsibility and stress than ever.

The District of Columbia has the most physicians per 100,000 capita in the country, while Utah has the fewest, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data published Feb. 7.

Physicians in Oklahoma are not prohibited from prescribing unapproved treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for the off-label purpose of treating COVID-19 patients, the state attorney general's office said Feb. 8. 

As public health experts and political leaders construct off-ramps from the highly regulated highway of COVID-19 safety measures, many physicians are encouraging just as much effort toward on-ramps to guide public health measures when the virus picks up again.

There are currently 1,061,141 active physicians in the U.S., according to data published by Kaiser Family Foundation Feb. 7.

The national association representing 170,000 physicians will welcome Susan Dentzer as its president and CEO in March.

A Pennsylvania physician accused of prescribing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to treat and prevent COVID-19 has been terminated from Tower Health, PennLive reported Feb. 4.

HHS is making $19.2 million available to support and expand training of primary care physician and dental residents in rural and underserved areas.

Physicians are more stressed and burned out then ever before - and administrative burdens are a big contributing factor. Healthcare organizations can alleviate some of this stress with the help of AI technology.

Medical boards have penalized eight physicians for furthering COVID-19, vaccine and therapeutic misinformation since January 2021, Politico reports. 

Hospitals have resorted to creating their own lottery systems to allocate a scarce supply of COVID-19 antibody treatments for immunocompromised patients, NPR reported Jan. 25.  

The extracorporeal membrane oxygenation team at Asheville, N.C.-based Mission Hospital is the recipient of the North Carolina Healthcare Association's Healthcare Hero Award, the hospital said Jan. 24.