Becoming a physician is a choice to serve - a commitment to walk one of the most challenging paths in life, driven by a desire to heal. This journey demands not a year or two, but over a decade of intense sacrifice. After college, there are typically at least seven grueling years of training, often extending to 11 or 12 for specialists, before finally reaching board certification. These years are filled with 80-hour workweeks (and once, even more), minimal pay, and a level of personal sacrifice that many wouldn’t endure. Every decision, every word, and every bit of knowledge is scrutinized under the weight of an unforgiving hierarchy. So, why would anyone willingly take this on?
Once, the answer was clear. Finishing training meant the freedom to practice medicine as a healer, where the greatest reward was the deeply human satisfaction of helping those in need. Physicians were sustained by this purpose, despite the constant demands, the “call” schedules, and the countless hours tied to pagers or waiting by hospital bedsides.
But today, a crisis looms over the profession, one so deep that it threatens not only doctors but the very future of patient care. At the heart of this crisis are two things: the erosion of autonomy and the relentless demands of the electronic medical record.
Loss of Autonomy
After a decade of honing their craft, most physicians today can no longer simply set up their own practice. Instead, they’re pulled into large systems and forced to adapt to the demands of corporate medicine. They’re told how long they can spend with each patient, what to prioritize, and how to structure each visit—often dictated by people who have never seen a patient or felt the weight of a life in their hands. This business-first model forces doctors to juggle a maze of metrics and financial goals (risk scores, revenue codes, HEDIS measures), often pulling them away from the patient’s immediate needs.
This daily struggle between patient-centered care and business demands erodes the very core of why physicians entered medicine in the first place. Each encounter becomes a battle, draining the passion and energy doctors once had.
Electronic Medical Record
And then, there’s the computer—the digital wall that often stands between doctor and patient. Have you ever felt, as a patient, that your doctor was more focused on the screen than on you? You’re not alone, and neither are they. The electronic medical record, intended to streamline care, has instead transformed many doctors into data clerks.
While some aspects of this technology have undeniably advanced care, the constant need to click, navigate, and document is relentless. Doctors spend precious hours clicking through countless screens, bypassing alerts, and deciphering massive amounts of information, only a fraction of which is relevant. Every shift, they face a never-ending flood of messages, test results, patient emails, and phone calls, each one requiring attention, each one adding to the mental load until it becomes almost unbearable.
Despite the perceived rewards of a physician’s life—status, salary, the privilege of helping others—there’s a hidden cost that few understand. Burnout is a kind of moral injury, a heartbreak born from the inability to do what one was trained and longs to do.
Imagine having the skill, the knowledge, the empathy to care for people when they are most vulnerable, but being shackled by a system that won’t allow it.
Imagine the pain of knowing your patient has waited months to see you, only to have your time together constrained by external demands and measures of satisfaction.
Being a doctor is a privilege, yes. But it’s also a profound burden, one that weighs heavily when the system itself becomes a barrier to care.
(Out of respect for their personal perspective, we have opted to keep the author of this blog anonymous.)
