Reflecting on Physician “Burnout”

As we talked and I reflected on my years in training and early career, I realized we did not have the term burnout then, nor would we have had permission to use it. We were told to give 110% to work, we never questioned that work would come above all else, and we didn’t recognize the dysfunctional patterns all around us. As I read the literature on burnout a few years ago, I realized that it is inevitable for most of us to feel burned out at some time in our careers.