Each year, surgeon John de Csepel spends the bulk of his vacation (about four weeks) as a volunteer trauma surgeon for Doctors Without Borders.
He also helps raise money for the organization, and donates to two other charities and his church, in addition to the occasional dollars he gives friends for their charity fundraisers.
The hands-on volunteer missions help keep his surgical skills sharp (he left a practice at midcareer and is now doing research), and he says the satisfaction it brings equals or exceeds the benefits of sitting on a beach.
"I don't mind spending all my vacation on this," says de Csepel. "What you hope to achieve on a vacation is a change in environment and pace and getting your mind off your regular job. Going on a mission satisfies those and a lot more."
After the sharpest drop in four decades occurred during the recession, U.S. charitable giving increased 3.8 percent in 2010, according to the Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.
Physician giving is more difficult to track, though the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy noted that physician donations to nonprofit hospitals and healthcare institutions were steady to rising during the downturn. Physicians have founded and continue to give to myriad charitable causes; some health related and others not.
Asked to help lead part of a recent United Way giving campaign for his colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic, immunologist and surgeon John Fung, chairman of the clinic's Digestive Disease Institute, says 71 percent of his potential donors gave to the effort.
"I was impressed by that. I think the campaign appealed to physicians' sense of this community," says Fung, who also has been involved with the American Liver Foundation and other organizations.
There are clearly challenges when it comes to physician giving, however, particularly as concerns abound about everything from the future of physician salaries to spiraling medical costs, to depleting retirement savings.
Fung and other physician donors say there is a palpable feeling that doctors simply can't or don't give at the levels they once did. Instead, they say, business owners, corporate executives, and investment bankers have taken over those roles.
"Physicians have a reputation as not being very good givers," says neonatologist Ed Karotkin, who serves as board chairman for Physicians for Peace and who volunteers and donates to several other causes. "I've been to fundraisers where people will come up to me and say, 'you're one of the few doctors who really support the community.'"
Mid- to late-career physicians "are not feeling they have the additional income for charitable causes," says Monika Bridgforth, senior development director for Physicians for Peace, a missions organization which sends teams of health professionals to the developing world for training missions. "They don't feel they are set for retirement," she says, with tuition payments for children's schooling often still on their plates.
Two reasons for hope, she says: Once retired, physicians often do circle back to organizations and get involved, with donations typically following service. And young physicians are keenly interested in mission work around the globe.
Some physicians strengthen patient relationships through joint volunteer projects, others (like de Csepel) find volunteering relieves stress, and others capitalize on tax benefits due to charitable giving.
