If you prefer reading, I invite you to look at the written post, which also includes embedded links for references. Also, a disclosure: I have no conflicts of interest or disclosures regarding the products cited.
Previously, we talked about how some myths are erroneous. For example, burnout has been wrongly conflated with two other terms: moral injury and stress. While there is overlap between the terms and even a causal link between them, the distinctions are important to Health Architects who seek to restore agency and human connection in clinical work. Today, we’ll address several other erroneous myths about burnout and see how the Health Architect faces them in the context of change, both individually and holistically.
Myth #4: Technology, including telemedicine and AI, will solve all my burnout problems.
Fact: False
While technology offers incredible potential to break down barriers in our quest for health and well-being, it can just as easily create new ones. Remember our discussion about AI from Episodes 13 and 14: when used tactically and deliberately, it can help remind us of new diagnoses, document our notes more efficiently, or provide outside-the-box ideas to broach conversations with colleagues. However, when used as a simple replacement for our complex thinking process, it can work against us, eroding our sense of competence and fostering a feeling of isolation. Worse still, whether it involves AI, devices, or other technology, failing to reflect on the limits of technology in terms of privacy, security, or accuracy can even lead to a malpractice lawsuit. Even telemedicine, which seems ubiquitous these days, can foster a sense of agency and trust with others when used thoughtfully; alternatively, it can create distance or doubts when not. It all depends on how the operator applies the technology in the bigger context of what is happening.
We will talk about this more concretely and practically in later posts, but for now, remember that Health Architects rethink how technology integrates into care plans and they use it thoughtfully. A central question they focus on is the following one:
How can technological tools enhance my sense of control and human connection rather than detract from them?
The creative answers that spring from reflection on this question are what guide the Health Architect forward.
Myth #5: If and until the system changes, burnout cannot go away.
Fact: False.
The temptation to find a scapegoat for our problems is common and understandable. At first, fixing blame on others (or better yet, on a soulless “system”) can make us feel vindicated. In my own indignation during training years and beyond, I felt righteous and justified outrage. But as time went on, my Holier Than Thou attitude felt hollow. I faced the same conflicts over and over and found that my smugness only led me to a dead end. I felt trapped. Cynicism and insecurity consumed me, and the negative energy I marinated in spilled into other areas of my life – involving my colleagues, my friendships, and even my family. A 2023 study showed that burnout affects not just physicians but their spouses and other family members through a well-described secondary trauma.
I eventually confronted the realization that while the system possesses significant responsibility for the crisis at hand, waiting for it to change unilaterally to an acceptable state is idealistic and foolish. There were several reasons why this was the case.
First, the current state of the healthcare industry is so entrenched, so fragmented, and so perversely incentivized that I was better off betting on horses in Vegas than hoping that the healthcare system would radically tilt in my direction. I took solace when seeing that even corporate behemoths couldn’t make a dent. This included Haven, a company founded by the merging corporate goliaths of JP Morgan Chase, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway and led by Dr. Atul Gawande, a renowned surgeon, author, and public health advocate. Despite all the promise – and hullabaloo – they could not get headway and the company disbanded in 2021, less than 3 years after launch. The system was just too impenetrable.
Second, I wised up to the fact that the empowerment I desperately craved for lived in the depths of my own psyche, not in external actors. In other words, I needed to help myself. As I described in my discussion of moral injury in Episode 17, when I yielded my authority to make my own decisions, I relinquished my capacity for self-determination. I was left waiting for the scraps – if and when they came – and this felt horrible. My feelings of disempowerment and helplessness got deeper the longer I waited. I realized it was way better to try something myself, even if I had to figure it out. Pushing myself was infinitely better than waiting to get pulled.
This is how I became a Health Architect. I didn’t deny the system’s power to shape value in healthcare—but I also refused to passively wait for it to change for me. Unlike the characters in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Health Architects don’t linger endlessly, hoping to be saved. They take action. They look for ways to connect with the system and strengthen those ties, whether by adopting new technologies or building relationships with administrators. By expanding our understanding of medical evidence, honing communication and team-building skills, and developing financial literacy, these connections multiply and deepen. The process itself becomes transformative. For example, when I began standing up for myself, I not only recognized my own agency—as I no longer felt like a pawn—but also gained confidence and felt less alone. Research supports this: one study found that higher self-esteem in 172 university students correlated with greater confidence and more proactive career decisions.
I also started enjoying the process of being a physician more and more. As I shifted from an externally focused, transactional way of being to an internally focused, experiential way of being, my creativity and sense of freedom surged. I found a chance for creativity almost everywhere I looked. Pablo Picasso once famously said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working,” indicating that true insights are a byproduct, not the objective, of the work we do. So too for Health Architects.
Myth #5: Physicians solve burnout by doing more pleasurable activities.
Fact: Sort of.
As we talked about in Episode 9, during formative training years, we incorporated negative habits, like eating poorly, not sleeping enough, and not exercising enough, into our concept of being a physician. This set us up for problems down the line. It was only a matter of time before our bodies, like prisoners locked up in a dungeon, would demand revenge. That feeling epitomizes burnout.
Yet “self-care,” like burnout itself, has become a cliched buzzword whose value has been stripped. To many today, “self-care” means less about internal exploration and the search for self-actualizing insights and more about externalizing our desires and engaging in self-indulgence and narcissism. Whether it’s downing raw vegetable shakes, signing up for weekly hydrotherapy sessions, swallowing a slew of supplements, getting a colonic cleanse, or plunging into a cold-water pool, wellness interventions have become increasingly commodified and commercialized for mass consumption. It doesn’t stop with products in your home or nearby spa; there are wellness retreats, wellness experiences, and even – wait for it – wellness tourism.
For example, for the right price, you too can discover, as an ad I saw proclaimed, why “wellness tourism is essential for living your best life.” And that price may be steep. At the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, for example, for a cool $44,400, you can have four sessions of the Next/Health Longevity Protocol, which involves NAD+ intravenous drips, customized vitamin shots, and stem cell and ozone therapy, alongside lounging in the resort’s poolside cabanas and dining at the Japanese restaurant, Komo. In their eyes, “well” is just short for “wealth.”
And in case you don’t know what to wear when tending to your wellness, not to worry! I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal Magazine recently about clothing to fit your wellness proclivities:
I’m not going to tell you that all these experiences are devoid of all value. As Skovholt and Trotter-Matthisen relate in their book The Resilient Practitioner, part of self-care does involve engaging in activities in which we feel pampered and comforted (they term this tending to the “playful” self). But as they note, the playful self is not the only part of self-care – in fact it’s a minor aspect. By focusing on this alone, we risk turning the journey of overcoming burnout into an ineffective – not to mention expensive – distraction. Overcoming burnout is not just about building resilience in a personal silo lavished with scented oils or taking a selfie in our favorite wellness shirt. It’s about mustering the courage to face the messy truth of what lies in our inner soul. This is what Socrates meant when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
More on this to come in future episodes, but Health Architects focus on creating internal and external environments to support well-being in a process that starts from within. This means creating spaces that enhance empathy and connection, not just between physicians and patients and their families, but between physicians and other healthcare team members, between physicians and other physicians, and between physicians and administrators. Attention to 360 degrees of connection promotes mental health, streamlines workflows, and removes unnecessary burdens that interfere with the core mission of caring for patients. Self-awareness and self-care are tools, not the endpoint.
Myths, Change, and the Health Architect
So, how does all this discussion about positive and erroneous myths help the Health Architect frame the approach to dealing with burnout? Well, from a holistic standpoint, Health Architects do two things.
First, we adopt updated, new myths (and their corresponding rituals) in our practice. We know that myths are culturally embedded for a reason; they light a path through the darkness of uncertainty. At the same time, we know they are aspirational rather than proscriptive. With the myth of the Health Architect, it’s time to move beyond reactive, survival mode and reimagine how we want to deliver healthcare. Health Architects ask self-searching, provocative questions, like:
How did I get to this point?
Who am I today?
What do I need to move forward?
Where do I want to go?
Answering these and other questions requires brutal honesty and creative courage that are essential for self-awareness. It also requires an openness to new ways of being through rituals that may not seem obvious or apparent.
Second, Health Architects give up outdated or ineffective myths. It is well known that our minds have a stronger aversion to losing something once we have it – behavioral economists and cognitive scientists call this “loss aversion” or the endowment effect. Once we have something in hand, whether an object or a thought, we are disproportionately disinclined to give it up. The same is true in medicine. We are reluctant to give up certain ways of thinking and being, even though we know they are harmful to us and prevent us from moving forward. For example, it is widely accepted that physicians have particular difficulty with changes in their practice, whether it’s antibiotic choices or surgical indications. Meanwhile, our habituated inability to sleep adequately, eat properly, or exercise is hard to break even when we sluggishly lurch from day to day. Our practiced outrage of being wronged by the system leaves no room for considering growth opportunities that are staring us in the face. The overconfidence in AI and technology to summarily solve our problems sits securely, even when we read about data breaches and deepfakes in the news.
Yet we must give up these incomplete or inaccurate biases. To enter the future, we must give up some or all of the past. Health Architects know that both gain – and loss – are part of the equation when it comes to overcoming burnout.
It’s worth emphasizing this point again: Health Architects recognize that growth always involves change—and change often comes with both gain and loss. As we move through different stages of life, we gain new appreciation for things that once seemed dull, and form friendships or relationships we never imagined. I never expected to settle down in Southern California; it was the last thing on my mind—until it wasn’t. At the same time, I noticed over the years that my old tastes had faded for certain music, foods, or even friendships. It’s only natural: our dreams, hopes, and fears evolve with time and circumstance. Opening doors to the future often means closing some to the past. While this can feel unsettling at first, with time, Health Architects come to see that change is life’s only true constant.
By recognizing that change and flux are the natural state, Health Architects view the entire burnout process differently. They see burnout as an opportunity to point this change in an overall positive direction. Furthermore, they understand that the phenomenon of burnout itself is a necessary part of the process. Indeed, Herbert Freudenberger, who described burnout in the 1970s, highlighted this point when he wrote the following in his chapter in Stress and Burnout in the Human Service Professions (1983):
It may also be useful, however, to consider the homeostatic function of burnout, that is, to consider how the process of burnout provides signals for us to monitor and alter maladaptive personal and social systems. An awareness of the health-endangering symptoms of burnout (e.g. physical or emotional depletion) may enable us to recognize our stress points and consequently to shift our goals, limit our activities, and rethink our lifestyles. Viewed from this perspective, burnout provides data that can be used effectively to make positive, health-promoting changes in our lives.
Taking Freudenberger’s lead, Health Architects see that actively engaging with change is intrinsic to human existence. We shape our careers and lives with care, attention, and courage to change ourselves proactively in a transjective experience with the environment. This agent-arena symbiosis impels us forward and is the formative means of establishing our feelings of agency and connection to others around us.
Take-home point:
Burnout can’t be fixed by technology alone, by waiting for the system to change, or by superficial self-care. Health Architects embrace change—knowing it involves both gain and loss—and use burnout as a homeostatic signal to grow, deepen human connection, and reshape their practice with courage, creativity, and agency.
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