It's Not Burnout, It's Moral Injury | AMA 15





This is what’s going on right here. I pretty much gave everything I humanly could to make a job I loved, serving patients I loved. I meditated, I did counseling. I sacrificed family and health. I unionized. I went back to school to become a leader and a change maker all for the radical idea that health care providers and patients should be in charge of the conditions of health care delivery because they can and should do better than insurers and business people. In the end, I was squashed by business people who are too busy or too threatened to listen to this message, under the pretense that I couldn’t hack the workload, couldn’t be a team player, complained too much. That despite putting a huge amount of energy into managing my emotions and exploring constructive solutions, I just couldn’t stuff it enough and make the money I guess. Every provider I know is going through some version of this. Many have left medicine. Some have had mental health crises. Some have committed suicide. I don’t know what the next step is. Finish school. But I’m not going back to this, it is literally a death sentence.

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