1Women’s Wellness and Research Centre, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar
2Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Al Wakra Hospital, Hamad Medical Corporation, Al Wakra, Qatar
Background: Obstetrics and gynecology (O&G) is under sustained pressure from clinician exhaustion, an unsettled medico-legal environment, loss of experienced staff, and growing demand for complex women’s healthcare. These difficulties rarely occur in isolation. Together, they shape access to care, continuity, patient experience, and the ability of services to remain safe over time.
Objective: To examine how burnout, litigation, and workforce instability interact in O&G, and to outline practical ways of making the specialty more sustainable, professionally rewarding, and responsive to patients’ needs.
Methods: A narrative review was undertaken using peer-reviewed research, systematic reviews, workforce reports, professional guidance, and relevant policy documents. The literature considered clinician wellbeing, complaints and defensive practice, recruitment and retention, multidisciplinary working, digital care, artificial intelligence (AI), precision medicine, genomics, and contemporary screening approaches.
Findings: The evidence points chiefly to conditions of work rather than individual weakness. Persistent rota gaps, heavy workload, emotional strain, limited recovery time, administrative demands, poor workplace culture, and lengthy complaints procedures all contribute to burnout and may encourage defensive practice or decisions to reduce hours and leave the specialty. Recruitment alone is therefore unlikely to resolve the problem. More durable responses include adequate staffing, protected training and rest, flexible career structures, phased retirement, multidisciplinary and continuity models, simpler administrative processes, fair investigation of adverse events, timely peer support, patient involvement in service design, and well-governed hybrid care. AI could assist with documentation, education, imaging, fetal surveillance, risk assessment, and workflow, but its use should depend on external validation, human oversight, privacy safeguards, monitoring for bias, and clear lines of responsibility. Genomic and precision approaches-including cell-free DNA screening, carrier screening, microarray, sequencing, and molecular tumour classification-offer opportunities for more accurate diagnosis and targeted treatment, although they also increase the need for counselling, specialist input, equitable access, and protection against overdiagnosis.
Conclusion: The future of O&G depends on more than clinical innovation. It also requires workable conditions, proportionate accountability, meaningful partnership with patients, and careful adoption of new technology. Clinician wellbeing should be treated as a measure of service quality and patient safety, with progress judged through retention, access, equity, patient outcomes, and the length and quality of professional careers.
Keywords: Obstetrics and Gynecology; Burnout; Workforce Sustainability; Litigation; Defensive Medicine; Patient-Centred Care; Artificial Intelligence; Precision Medicine; Genomics
Sunday Olubusola Amu., et al. “The Wounded Specialty: Burnout, Litigation, Workforce Challenges, and the Future of Obstetrics and Gynecology”. EC Gynaecology 15.9 (2026): 01-08.
© 2026 Sunday Olubusola Amu., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Open Access by ECronicon is
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License
Based on a work at www.ecronicon.net
