Medical Providers are Burnt Out: But we didn’t start the fire

You look at your schedule. A mountain of charts is waiting for your review. Your team is understaffed, and someone just called out sick…

You realize that your shift is going to be less like a typical day at work and more like an episode of Squid Game. 

In healthcare, we talk a lot about "burnout." But we often talk about it as if it's a personal failing, something to be fixed with a trendy diet, a meditation app, or a better sleep schedule.

Burnout is not from personal issues of overcommitment or wanting to work more than we have to. It is an inevitable consequence of systemic issues ingrained in healthcare. 

Let’s first talk about how this phenomenon has impacted real people in our healthcare system…

A clinician named Diane pushed through erratic schedules and grueling hours for years, assuming the chronic fatigue was just part of the job description. When she started feeling ineffective, like she was running on a treadmill and going nowhere fast, she tried all the classic wellness fixes—yoga, dieting, the usual advice, right?

But Diane still felt completely stuck. Why? Because her decline wasn’t a sudden event, it was a slow boil that finally spilled over after years of working in a pressure cooker-type environment.

In short, she was experiencing a symptom of a much larger disease. 

Way too many times, I’ve heard of clinicians skipping meals and even skipping water breaks because stepping away from their patients felt impossible. Diane described it this way: She was stuck with a bottomless schedule and staff shortages and simply couldn’t take it anymore because, in her words, “There isn’t any more help coming.”

One hospital actually tried to do the right thing by placing a psychiatrist on staff, not for the patients, but for the clinicians who were clearly breaking down. The result? The clinical team was so overloaded with patients that they didn’t have time to use the service.

Did they want to? Sure! But imagine drowning, and all you need is a life preserver… The only problem is your hands are too full to grab hold of it. We are too busy to sleep, too busy to eat, and WAY too busy to focus on our mental health. 

And it’s not just the physically intense bedside nurses who experience burnout (although this, of course, is a very real problem). All members of the interdisciplinary team face their own unique brand of trauma.

While they might not be running codes, PTs, OTs, and SLPs are carrying an emotional weight that eventually makes the work feel unmanageable. It can be subtle and insidious, but it is real and has a huge effect. Many of us do our best to be so fully present and give everything we have during a session, only to find we have absolutely no space or energy left afterward for our friends, families… or ourselves.

In this environment, a therapist doesn't stop caring. In fact, their productivity drops only because caring itself has become too overwhelming.

What does it mean to be productive?

We hear the word "productivity" constantly, but when you ask people in healthcare what it means, they will give you a much different response than if you ask a healthcare executive. Those in management see productivity as a necessity to ensure they are keeping the financial health of their institutions in mind.

This makes sense, and I believe these managers and administrators ultimately have good intentions. But the hyperfocus on productivity is backfiring. 

For example, I’ve heard from many clinicians who say their managers make them feel guilty, cornered, and “bullied into taking extra shifts” just so the facility can increase profits. I truly do not believe upper management understands the impact they are having on clinicians. 

Of course, when a clinician's metrics drop, they are not simply working slowly. They are desperately trying to function within a system that drains their attention, empathy, and energy. We cannot yoga our way out of a staffing crisis. We cannot fix structural gaps with deep breathing exercises.

What can we do?

When basic self-preservation—like drinking water or taking a moment to decompress—becomes the very thing healthcare workers must sacrifice to stay on schedule, the system has failed all of us (including healthcare administrators). It’s as simple as that.

It's time we stop treating clinician burnout as a personal coping issue and start treating it as the systemic crisis it is. Only when we address the crushing emotional and physical demands placed on our teams can we seek the support we need to continue to dedicate our lives to supporting others.

Next week, we are going to take a quick break from all the doom and gloom and talk about 5 tactics to help you deal with burnout head-on at the source. Don’t worry, then we’ll get back to our regular scheduled program of loom and doom.

If you’re interested in making a bigger difference as a medical SLP, enroll in the new course, Be The Change. It includes direct support from the instructor for a limited time.