The story we tell about doctors who leave. What if burnout Isn’t the whole picture?
There's a common assumption whenever a doctor steps away from clinical medicine: that they must have burned out. It's the explanation people reach for first, rather than asking whether it's actually true. I understand why. It's the story we hear most, and it fits with the current narrative that everyone is leaving.
It's also, I've noticed, the angle people are often keenest to pursue when I've been approached to share my story — journalists, podcast hosts, people writing about doctors leaving medicine. Burnout makes for a more clickable headline than "I found something I wanted to do more." I understand why it's the angle others want. I'm just not willing to force my story into that mould, just because it's the one that gets more attention.
Because that's not my story.
The Hidden Struggle: How Anxiety and Shame Shape Doctors’ Lives
It can begin in small, invisible ways.
A flutter in the chest before ward rounds. A tightness in the throat before speaking up in meetings, the waves of nausea preparing to speak to a concerned relative.
The quiet dread of not knowing, not being enough, not having the answer, not being able to hold it all.
For years, anxiety lived in my body like a quiet, constant alarm. I would feel it rise, an inner fluttering, a heat in my chest. I could feel the blush before it came. And I feared it. Not just the sensation, but what it would mean. What others would see. That they would notice and judge me.
And then comes the shame.
Because doctors, we tell ourselves, aren’t meant to feel this way. We’re trained to be steady, competent, unshakable. We learn to allay fear in others, but not in ourselves. And when anxiety shows up, it feels like a betrayal. A crack in the armour we’ve worked so hard to wear.
Introducing Florescence; A Sister circle for women in medicine
An evening for women in medicine to pause, connect, and be nourished in circle.
Together we’ll share, listen, and root ourselves in the season’s wisdom leaving with a little more clarity, belonging, and breath. Nourishing food, fire, meditation, poetry, nature. You are welcome here ♥️