Physicians Have Modestly Higher Likelihood of Dying at Home or Hospice

MONDAY, March 2, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Physicians are modestly more likely to die at home or hospice compared with other highly educated occupational groups, other health care practitioners, and the general population, according to a brief report published online Feb. 24 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Vishal R. Patel, M.D., from Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues measured whether physicians are more likely than others to die at home or hospice. The analysis included ~11.2 million people (aged 30 years and older; 0.4 percent physicians) who died from 2020 to 2023, identified from the National Vital Statistics System.

The researchers found that in an adjusted analysis, 44.2 percent of physicians died at home or hospice versus 40.6 percent of the other general population; 41.1 percent of lawyers, engineers, and scientists; 41.8 percent of registered nurses; and 41.8 percent of other health care practitioners. Across six leading causes of death and across occupations, this pattern was consistent; physicians had the highest percentage of deaths at home or hospice for cancer (64.3 percent), lower respiratory diseases (52.3 percent), heart disease (47.4 percent), Alzheimer disease (44.4 percent), stroke (41.9 percent), and COVID-19 (13.0 percent).

“Although the finding that physicians die at home or hospice somewhat more often may reassure patients and families that such outcomes are aligned with informed preferences, the modest magnitude of this difference suggests that factors beyond clinical knowledge may be important drivers of place of death,” the authors write.

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