It was a hot August day. I walked into my first day of medical school orientation wearing shorts and a T-shirt, flanked by two roommates. One I had known through all of undergrad, the other I had met just a few days before through an old-fashioned “...

Series: Part 1: System Transformation | Part 2: Provider Solutions | Part 3 In this final installment of our three-part series, we shift the spotlight to patients and communities. The American healthcare system spends more than any other country yet...

Series: Part 1: System Transformation | Part 2 | Part 3: Patient Approaches In the first article of this series, we explored how systemic dysfunction, high costs, and poor health outcomes fuel burnout among the people who deliver care. Nearly half o...

Series: Part 1 | Part 2: Provider Solutions | Part 3: Patient Approaches Editor’s note: This post is the first in a three-part series examining the burnout crisis in U.S. health care and outlining a blueprint for system transformation. Part 2 explor...

Medicine teaches us how to care for patients. We also need to learn how to care for ourselves. As a pediatrician, I am trained to monitor development. At well visits, we assess growth and milestones. We ask about speech, motor development, social en...

Update April 2026 Medicine should challenge you, not break you. It is a profession that demands rigor and sacrifice, but there is a meaningful difference between leaning into a healthy growth edge and slipping into harmful strain. Feeling engaged, s...

Updated April 2026 Medicine has always been challenging. For many physicians, that challenge is part of the draw. It is what gets you out of bed after a long shift, what motivates you to prove you can do hard things and make a real difference. But i...

Updated April 2026 When I first heard about coaching, I was skeptical. I had reached a breaking point and had already tried everything else including therapy, time off, medication, and other jobs. Nothing helped. A colleague suggested coaching. I ex...

Updated April 2026 Becoming a physician is a privilege. Few careers grant the opportunity to ease suffering, participate in people’s most vulnerable moments, and experience lifelong learning in such a concrete way. After nearly two decades of practi...

Updated April 2026 As physicians, we spend years honing clinical skills to care for patients. Yet many of us reach a point where the demands of practice feel unsustainable. Or, just as common but less frequently discussed, we are busy and bored at t...