The purpose of this study was to investigate the work-related stress among Japanese emergency doctors who worked harder than other Japanese doctors, in 2003. The analysis of 62 emergency doctors from 5 tertiary emergency medical centers shows that their stress consisted of “irregular life-style and scarce private hours”, “health-related anxiety owing to strong physical burden”, “cheap rewards and few night-duty allowances”, “few nap and meal breaks during duty,” etc. Further, results show that work-related stress differ among job-class (managers, staff doctors, and residents) ; for example, managers' distinctive stress was “the trouble from the patients' insistence of being examined by experts”, and those of residents was “poor cooperation with other clinical departments”. It is important to manage the stress levels and improve emergency doctors' health and ensure their job satisfaction.
In Japan, reports about the overwork of Japanese emergency doctors were published after 2005. This has seemed to be changing the work conditions of doctors. However, there are only few investigations to indicate this improvement. Further studies are needed to investigate emergency doctors' work-related stress after 2005.