I knew from the beginning that something was wrong in the culture of medicine, but I never believed it would almost kill me. This is not a story about my health. It’s a story about why my health story is not unusual. I hope it becomes a call to action.

I grew up in Berkeley, where speaking up is a developmental milestone. Early in my medical training, I started asking questions. Why is extreme sleep deprivation a rite of passage? Why do we call it commitment when someone hasn’t peed or eaten in twelve hours? Why do we treat human physiological needs as a weakness?

Caring for others shouldn’t require harming ourselves.

In training, we are taught that our human bodies and their needs are an inconvenience, one we can outwork if we are committed enough. I had my first baby in medical school. The contradictions in medical culture become impossible to ignore when you are pregnant. Physicians reading this will not be surprised to learn that I had multiple complications. Pyelonephritis in the first trimester during my OB rotation and significant complications during my delivery.

When physicians have complicated courses, we call it “the curse of working in medicine.” It’s so common, we don’t bat an eye. My doctors attributed my pregnancy complications to this as well. I was a healthy 27-year-old after all. My course was simply the expected “bad luck” that med students and physicians have when it comes to their health.

Is it really bad luck?

Science shows that high stress and sleep deprivation, among other things, cause physiologic harm. Just like eggshell plaintiffs, physicians are “eggshell” patients.

My second son was born when I was 30 years old and in my second year of pediatric residency. The complications this time were completely different. I went into preterm labor at 24 weeks, midway through a 36-hour call shift, midway through an ICU rotation. This was clearly conditions-related but that was not the messaging I received at the time. My course was once again attributed to bad luck and “the curse of being a health care provider.”

At thirty-four, as a mom of a 4 and 8-year-old, I found myself in the ICU. This incident was not related to pregnancy. My story, corroborated by my doctors, was once again that I was unlucky.

My ICU experience left me with some permanent physical limitations, but as I was trained to do, I returned to work as a pediatrician as soon as I could. Within three months, I was back pushing, holding it together, managing, performing, and caring for other people’s bodies at the expense of my own.

The medical culture glorifies overriding hunger, fatigue, pain, grief, and our physical limits. They are evidence of strength and commitment. Pediatricians, in particular, are taught to sacrifice themselves to care for and safeguard other people’s children. What about our own children?

Serious health issues at younger-than-expected ages are commonplace in the 1,000+ women physicians I have coached over the last six and a half years. I estimate that over half are managing some kind of chronic condition. Autoimmune arthritis. Multiple sclerosis. Other autoimmune diseases. Breast cancer. Other cancers. Rare diagnoses.

My own medical story didn’t end twenty plus years ago. I am struck by the commonality of the stories among women physicians.

Studies also show one in four women physicians experiences infertility, roughly double the rate in the general population. Some of this is clearly attributable to training duration and maternal age but I no longer believe that this is the whole story.

Time magazine recently reported that women physicians have shorter lifespans than male physicians despite the fact that women, on average, outlive men (“Women Live Longer Than Men, But Not in Medicine,” March 7, 2025). Female physicians face a 250 to 400 percent higher risk of suicide compared to other professions.

What has not been studied, to my knowledge, is morbidity in women physicians. In my 25 years working in physician wellness I have not even heard it discussed.

Being a physician should not require compromising your own health. Yet despite taking oaths to do no harm, medicine has normalized practices that harm physicians’ health in training. These practices continue, to a lesser degree, throughout a medical career.

Overriding human biology, specifically not allowing time for rest and recovery, is seen as commitment and “excellence.” The negative effects of this are described as bad luck. Would a scientific study show that it is simply bad luck?

Health care training and expectations clearly need to change. This isn’t up for debate. But systems won’t change if we as physicians remain complicit. My bravery in sharing my story comes from knowing that systems will only change if we start speaking up about our health complications not as curses but as consequences.

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.