Conflicting demands in surgical practice.

975 Fellows of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland were circulated with a questionnaire which was designed to assess the extent to which they experienced conflicts between personal, clinical and administrative demands. Seventy-one per cent of the 305 respondents indicated that they had experienced such conflicts within the previous three weeks. When a conflicts between administrative and clinical demands was experienced, surgeons gave priority to each in similar proportions, but when personal or family needs conflicted with clinical or administrative demands, their personal lives were almost always given a lower priority. The surgeons reported that these types of conflict often affected the quality of patient care and 60 per cent indicated that they were considering early retirement.