Navigating Oncology’s New Era: A Day in the Life of Today’s Oncologist
Addressing the rising complexity, confusion, cognitive strain, and emotional toll of modern oncology care.
Authored by Brad Aufderheide, Alexander Levine
What you’ll learn:
To support oncologists effectively, every tool, message, and tactic must reduce friction and fit seamlessly into their high-pressure, time-constrained workflows.
Burnout among oncologists is a system-level threat to care quality, and addressing it requires empathy, operational support, and streamlined processes.
Marketers must move beyond promotion to partnership, aligning with oncologists’ values and equipping them with shareable, trusted tools that thrive in collaborative, patient-centered care.
Today’s oncologists stand at the intersection of extraordinary medical innovation and unprecedented complexity. With 66% of FDA drug approvals since 2000 in oncology, they face a relentless influx of new treatments, data, and standards—reshaping their daily routines and accelerating the pace of decision-making, personalization, and paperwork.
Recognizing these pressures is essential for oncology marketers and medical teams. Effectively reaching and supporting oncologists means going beyond product details and embracing strategies that recognize the cognitive, emotional, and systemic burdens they face day in and day out.
Inside the Daily Grind: Clinical and Administrative Pressures
An oncologist’s day typically begins with significant administrative demands, such as prior authorizations, extensive documentation, and insurance negotiations. Recent research highlights that the time oncologists spend logged into electronic health record (EHR) systems climbed by 16%, from roughly 400 minutes per week in 2019 to 465 minutes per week in 2022. Putting that in perspective: on average, that’s 7.5 hours a week—often unpaid and after hours—spent on EHRs alone.
Throughout the day, oncologists consult with an average of 18 patients, each within a tight 35-minute consultation window. During these visits, they must navigate complex treatment decisions and manage expectations, balancing clinical efficacy with affordability and patient quality of life concerns.
Addressing this crisis demands structural change.
In addition to clinical demands, oncologists must continually educate themselves on new and emerging treatments. This self-directed research includes processing information from over 2,253 ongoing Phase 3 oncology trials, fueling an ongoing sense of overload, even with an hour a day dedicated to reviewing medical literature. What does this tell us?
For marketers, brevity and precision are essential. If your message takes longer than five minutes to understand, it may never reach your intended audience. Make data digestible, timely, and immediately relevant to the clinical decisions oncologists are making in their treatment setting.
For medical affairs and education teams, oncologists don’t have capacity for volume—they need value. Curated insights, decision trees, and case-based resources must match how oncologists actually work: fast, distracted, and context-first.
Bottom line: The way we support oncologists must change to reflect the real conditions of their workday. Communications and initiatives that don’t remove friction, or worse, add to it, won’t be adopted. However, strategies and tactics to improve recall, aid reuse, and bring clarity will become indispensable.
Growing Burnout and Emotional Stress
Burnout among oncologists is a system failure with clinical consequences, not just a personal health issue—with rising caseloads, relentless documentation demands, and the emotional toll of treating seriously ill patients resulting in record levels of burnout. In the EU and the US, 71% and 45% of oncologists, respectively, report burnout symptoms. Many say they feel more like data clerks or insurance advocates than physicians, fueling frustration, fatigue, and disengagement. Addressing this crisis demands structural change. Burnout must be treated as a core healthcare quality issue, with meaningful investment in staffing support, reduced administrative friction, and tools that genuinely lighten the load. What does this tell us?
For marketers, it’s a call to shift from promotion to partnership. Touting your brand’s innovation isn’t enough. How does it help reduce decision fatigue? Does it simplify a treatment path or offer peer-validated reassurance? If it doesn’t, it risks adding to the cognitive load of an already burned-out audience.
For medical affairs and MSL teams, empathy needs to be operationalized. Every interaction should respect time constraints, emotional fatigue, and cognitive overload. Support materials must be designed for real-life use—snackable content that's ready to implement and emotionally intelligent.
Bottom line: Burnout is a professional threat to care quality, innovation uptake, and system resilience. If we don’t acknowledge the realities of burnout, we’re building something that oncologists won’t be able—or willing—to use.
The Future of Oncology: Team-Based, Real-World, and Patient-Centric
Oncology practice is evolving rapidly, shaped by significant shifts in oncologist demographics and attitudes. Younger oncologists are especially attuned to issues of health equity, personalized care, and social responsibility, influencing their clinical choices and interactions with industry partners. As oncologists navigate increasingly complex clinical landscapes and administrative burdens, multidisciplinary teams—integrating nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and patient navigators—will become essential.
By understanding the day-to-day realities of oncology practice, industry and policy leaders can deliver targeted, meaningful solutions that ease burdens and empower oncologists to focus on their primary mission: providing compassionate, state-of-the-art cancer care.
Authors
Brad Aufderheide
SVP, Oncology and Rare Disease Strategy
Brad Aufderheide is a member of Klick’s deep bench of savvy strategists, bringing expertise not only in traditional brand marketing but also in cross-cultural intelligence, activation, omnichannel, social, UX, corporate, and gaming. He leads Klick’s oncology and rare disease strategy, leveraging nearly 30 years of experience in HCP and consumer healthcare marketing. A seasoned expert in brand launches, he specializes in marketing strategy, lifecycle planning, market research, branding, and positioning. As a health educator, he integrates adult learning, behavior change theories, and health literacy into his work. With over 15 years in oncology marketing and a decade in rare disease, Brad has supported diverse brands across multiple conditions.
Alexander Levine
SVP, Oncology Business Lead
With over two decades in the industry and deep oncology expertise, Alex has led commercialization for leading brands, including Enhertu, Padcev, Avastin, Rituxan, and Venclexta. He has also worked across other therapeutic areas, such as diabetes and ophthalmology, but his passion lies in oncology. A proud New Yorker and University of Wisconsin–Madison grad, Alex enjoys spending time with his wife and daughters and cheering on the Badgers and his NY teams.
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