The solution to the physician burnout crisis isn’t more diagnoses or interventions. The antidote isn’t more modules, surveys, screenings, or questionnaires. What’s needed is cultural healing: One that we have so far been unwilling and/or too depleted to attempt.

Over the past decade, physician wellness has been medicalized. We’ve absorbed it into the very system that made us unwell. We’ve labeled it as pathology—when in fact, it’s a predictable outcome of a culture built on perfectionism, over-functioning, and self-erasure. Wellness has become one more task. Another metric. Another domain of performance. We measure it. And measure it. And measure it more. We are trying to “treat” it using the same system that caused it.

Physician unwellness is not a disease. It’s a cultural and conditioning problem. It’s a values problem and a systems problem. These problems won’t be solved by a resilience workshop, checklist, or app. They won’t be solved by more meetings or committees.

Physicians are the ones who understand the intricacies of the system. We are the ones who carry the stories, the suffering, and the stakes. We are the ones who care enough to want to fix it. We were told to leave the work of designing better systems, workplaces, and ways of being in medicine to others so we could focus on patient care. This hasn’t turned out well. Those outside the system don’t carry the same depth of understanding or lived experience of medicine’s invisible wounds.

When physicians are supported to live, lead, and work in alignment, they become the most powerful agents of change the health care system has ever seen. This is a call to institutions to take a risk. Share meaningful opportunities for true wellness with your physicians—not performative ones.

• Coaching
• Conversations
• Connection
• Time
• Space
• Humanity

Dare to step outside the box and change the standard of wellness programming. Support your physicians to engage in meaningful programming that repletes them, empowers them, and inspires them. Programming that helps them feel well at a cellular level and remember who they are. When physicians are well they can lead medicine to remember what it’s meant to be.

Jessie Mahoney is a board-certified pediatrician, certified coach, mindfulness and yoga teacher, and the founder of Pause & Presence Coaching & Retreats. After nearly two decades as a physician leader at the Permanente Medical Group/Kaiser, she stepped outside the traditional medical model to reimagine what sustainable well-being in health care could look like. She can also be reached on Facebook and Instagram.

Dr. Mahoney’s work challenges the culture of overwork and self-sacrifice in medicine. She helps physicians and leaders cultivate clarity, intention, and balance—leveraging mindfulness, coaching, yoga, and lifestyle medicine to create deep and lasting change. Her CME retreats offer a transformative space for healing, self-discovery, and renewal.

As co-host of the podcast, Healing Medicine, she brings self-compassion and presence into the conversation around modern medical practice. A sought-after speaker and consultant, she partners with organizations to build more human-centered, sustainable, and inspired medical cultures.

Dr. Mahoney is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.