I am the first physician in my family. Serving others as a physician and physician researcher is not just my profession, it is my calling. But with that calling comes an unseen responsibility: the weight of caring for those closest to me, including aging relatives.

When my grandmother was dying, I found myself stepping into the role of physician at moments when all I wanted was the space to grieve as a granddaughter. More recently, my 74-year-old mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and my 73-year-old father is in remission from laryngeal cancer. I also serve as health care power of attorney for most of my aging relatives. This layered responsibility is not unique to me. Many physicians carry what could be described as a “care tax,” an additional, often invisible burden that contributes to burnout yet remains underrecognized and under-researched, particularly among women physicians.

The bigger picture

Physician burnout has reached critical levels. Resource constraints, workforce shortages, and shifts in the federal funding landscape have placed increasing pressure on the health care workforce. At the same time, the U.S. population is aging rapidly. There are now more adults over the age of 65 than children under the age of 5. This demographic shift has profound implications, not just for the health care system, but for the physicians within it.

Yet the intersection of these two realities, physician burnout and the growing caregiving demands for aging relatives, has received insufficient attention. While burnout has been widely studied, there is a notable lack of research focused specifically on physicians who are simultaneously serving as caregivers for elderly family members. This gap matters. Physicians, particularly women, are leaving the workforce at concerning rates, and without a deeper understanding of these contributing factors, meaningful solutions remain out of reach.

What we know about physician burnout

Existing data highlight a clear imbalance in caregiving responsibilities. Women physicians shoulder a disproportionate share of household duties and cognitive labor compared to their male counterparts. Physician mothers are significantly more likely to take on additional caregiving roles. One JAMA Network Open study found they are 30 times more likely than physician fathers to assume these responsibilities.

Similarly, research published in Pediatrics demonstrates that women physicians spend more time on both childcare and eldercare, often while also having partners who work full time, leaving less margin for support. This dynamic contributes to what has been described as the “triple caregiver” burden, physicians who provide professional care to patients while also caring for children and aging relatives, in a Journal of General Internal Medicine analysis.

As a practicing pain medicine physician with two young daughters, a spouse who works full time, and parents with complex medical needs, I can attest that this triple caregiver burden is not theoretical. It is my lived reality.

The opportunity

Despite these realities, the full scope and impact of elderly caregiving on physicians remain poorly understood. In the absence of large-scale studies, we lack the data needed to quantify how caregiving responsibilities influence physician well-being, career satisfaction, and workforce retention. This gap limits our ability to design meaningful, system-level solutions.

Instead, we remain stuck in a paradigm that focuses on “fixing” the physician, offering yoga sessions, mindfulness training, or referrals to employee assistance programs. While these interventions may provide short-term relief, they do little to address the structural challenges that underlie burnout.

Those challenges are substantial: inflexible clinical schedules that leave little room for caregiving demands, a lack of accessible and affordable eldercare resources, and leave policies that often fail to adequately account for caring for aging family members. These are not individual resilience problems. They are system design problems.

A call to action

Caring for patients should not come at the expense of caring for ourselves or our families. As physicians, we are trained to show up for others in their most vulnerable moments. As a physician leader, I feel the weight of the responsibility not only to bring attention to this issue, but also to help drive meaningful, system-level solutions that reflect the realities physicians face both inside and outside of clinical care. If health systems and clinical practices cannot be moved to action by a desire to lessen the burden on physicians, perhaps they will be moved by the impact on the bottom line. Physicians leaving the workforce is not just a workforce issue; it is a financial crisis. It is time we expand the conversation, redesign our systems, and ask more directly: Who is showing up for the physician, and what must we change to ensure they can continue to show up for everyone else?

Amber K. Brooks is a pain management physician.