Burning Doctors Out

Burnout - a long-term stress reaction marked by emotional exhaustion, de-personalization, and a lack of sense of personal accomplishment.

Physician burnout. It’s a term that’s been floating around for decades, but only recently stepped into the limelight as a cause for concern. While many professionals, healthcare and not, do experience burnout, here I am going to talk specifically about physician burnout. This stems from overworking, high expectations, rules, laws, peers, patients, science, experience and more. In all honesty, some of it stems from who physicians are as people; very Type A, go-getter, perfectionists. It’s hard to continuously live like that, every day, all the time. However, it’s perpetuated by society. Doctors must know everything. Doctors must fix everything. They must be always available, always ready, always prepared and always right. We know that’s impossible, yet we expect it anyway. We forget that doctors are humans, and they have the same access to knowledge and information as anyone else. They make mistakes. They have feelings. They have lives and families. While their world tends to revolve around their patients, that is not sustainable, or healthy.

There are so many things that go on behind closed doors that the general public is unaware of in the world of a physician. Many, I am not even aware of myself as a student. However, a few include: financial stress, insurance, paperwork, administration, legal, charting, credentialing, continuing education, research, testing and boards, and the day-to-day practice life. Just a reminder, physicians also only have 24 hours in a day. And contrary to popular belief, also need to sleep.

I am so tired of reading things in social media about doctors who recommended a vaccine that caused some minor complication like a rash, and the patient thinks the doctor did it maliciously or for big pharma. Or a doctor who told a family their baby had a congenital malformation that was incompatible with life and could terminate if they so chose, for the people to turn around and slam doctors as heartless murderers. Doctors are people sharing the knowledge they have learned from studies and experience with you. They do everything within their power to make you as happy and healthy as they can. They are not magic and they are not God. But you know what they are? Dying. By suicide. Taking their own life because of the pressure.

Quitting. Dropping out. Some of the smartest, most knowledgeable and well-rounded people in the world, leaving the profession and leaving this Earth. Yes, they are.

Depressed, anxious, insomniacs, stressed, unhappy. Overworked. Constantly worrying. About you. Your family, the insurance, the economy, the future of healthcare and taking care of the human population. We take care for granted. Yet, we get mad at the about cost of medication or a 15 minute wait?

It goes along with being decent human beings. It's always said "Put yourself in their shoes" or "you never know what someone is going through", yet, people seem to think we cannot apply those concepts to physicians. Are they inhuman? No.

No, doctors are not perfect.  Not every one of them has the same heart or motivations, but they are all human.

As a medical student, I feel myself and my peers are facing the level of burnout and stress that a physician used to feel 30+ years into their career, today. We are overworked, over-learning, tired, dehumanized, drained and stressed. We have to learn an ungodly amount of information, regurgitate it, and get defined by our numerical score on an exam. We come in as bright-eyed undergrad wonders, and we go through day to day as zombies.

Do we look good from the outside? Yeah, most of the time. We smile, we laugh, we appear perfectly okay. We may seem a little more tired and a little more stressed to those around us, but overall, appearance are good.

But, appearances are deceiving.

Many days, I come home and reflect on how I acted that day. Like when you go to the doctor and acted totally healthy, even though you had a headache or a stuffy nose, but you wanted to appear okay? When I think about my day, I think of the times I smile and laughed, checked my phone, thought of something other than school, then berate myself for doing so. "I could have been studying. I wasted time. I'm so behind. My exam is in 15 days. I know nothing." Trust me, my inner monologue has said it all.

Yet, I am so burnt out that I don't really care. Here I am, writing this blog post when I should be studying. Here I am wasting an hour fixing my website, when I have lectures to annotate and an exam 2 weeks from tomorrow. Writing is cathartic for me, but am I wasting time? Can it be better used? My brain is in a constant conflict at any given time. How do we know what to do?

We don't. We learn as we go. And I want you to know that it's okay. It is okay if you feel like an imposter, like you don't belong in medical school, or the smile doesn't belong on your face. Like you don't know what you are doing. But you belong. You can smile. It will be okay. We are in this together.