Devina Maya Wadhwa, MD
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Latest articles
Conditions and diseases
A physician says she is exhausted after months of working short-staffed. Burnout. A resident feels increasingly detached from patients after repeated 80-hour weeks. Burnout. A doctor cannot stop thinking about a patient who died unexpectedly. Burnout. A clinician feels powerless…
A physician says she is exhausted after months of working short-staffed. Burnout. A resident feels increasingly detached from patients after repeated 80-hour weeks. Burnout. A doctor cannot stop thinking about a patient who died unexpectedly. Burnout. A clinician feels powerless working in a system where patients wait months for care they need now. Burnout. Someone returns to work while grieving and discovers that the emotional reserve they once relied on …
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Stop calling every form of physician distress burnout
Physician voices
Physicians reassure people every day: "Your tests are normal." "There is nothing dangerous going on." "This is good news." "You are going to be OK." We usually say these things with good intentions. We want to reduce fear, provide perspective,…
Physicians reassure people every day:
- “Your tests are normal.”
- “There is nothing dangerous going on.”
- “This is good news.”
- “You are going to be OK.”
We usually say these things with good intentions. We want to reduce fear, provide perspective, and help patients leave our offices or emergency departments feeling safer than when they arrived. But sometimes reassurance does not reassure.
The patient continues asking questions. They return to the emergency …
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How to reassure patients: 5 steps beyond normal tests
Conditions and diseases
Author's note: Throughout this essay, I use the term "football," the name used throughout most of the world and by FIFA itself. Readers in Canada and the United States may know the sport as soccer, but for the purposes of…
Author’s note: Throughout this essay, I use the term “football,” the name used throughout most of the world and by FIFA itself. Readers in Canada and the United States may know the sport as soccer, but for the purposes of this reflection, football feels true to both the game and my own connection to it.
It is World Cup season, and I have become completely absorbed in the matches. The drama. …
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Self-compassion for physicians starts on the pitch
Physician voices
There are some patients whose names change the atmosphere of a day before they have even entered the room. You see the name on your schedule and feel it immediately. It may be a glance at the clock, a slight…
There are some patients whose names change the atmosphere of a day before they have even entered the room.
You see the name on your schedule and feel it immediately. It may be a glance at the clock, a slight tightening in your chest, or the quiet hope that the visit might somehow be shorter than you remember. Every clinician knows this feeling, although few of us admit it openly.
The patient …
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The difficult patient is really a difficult encounter
Physician voices
For many people, mornings no longer begin gently. The day now arrives all at once: emails, headlines, notifications, unanswered messages, schedules, worries, reminders, and the quiet pressure to immediately become productive. Before the body has fully awakened, the mind has…
For many people, mornings no longer begin gently. The day now arrives all at once: emails, headlines, notifications, unanswered messages, schedules, worries, reminders, and the quiet pressure to immediately become productive. Before the body has fully awakened, the mind has already entered a state of vigilance.
Increasingly, I meet patients who describe feeling exhausted before the day has meaningfully begun. Not necessarily in the dramatic language of burnout or acute crisis, …
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How nervous system overload masquerades as personal failure
Physician voices
By most measures, the treatment was working. The symptoms had improved. Sleep was more consistent. The edge of panic had softened into something more manageable. The medications were tolerated, the therapy was progressing, and the follow-ups were steady. On paper,…
By most measures, the treatment was working. The symptoms had improved. Sleep was more consistent. The edge of panic had softened into something more manageable. The medications were tolerated, the therapy was progressing, and the follow-ups were steady.
On paper, this was what success in psychiatry is supposed to look like, and yet, something in the room said otherwise. It is not always obvious. There is no scale that captures it …
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Psychiatry and human suffering are not always the same
Physician voices
From the outside, medicine is often imagined as a profession defined by urgency and dramatic turning points. People picture emergency rooms where rapid decisions determine outcomes, life-saving interventions performed under pressure, and moments when a physician's action decisively alters the…
From the outside, medicine is often imagined as a profession defined by urgency and dramatic turning points. People picture emergency rooms where rapid decisions determine outcomes, life-saving interventions performed under pressure, and moments when a physician’s action decisively alters the course of illness. These moments certainly exist, and they remain some of the most visible parts of medical practice, but they represent only a small fraction of what most physicians …
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The human side of medicine in quiet clinical moments
Conditions and diseases
The overhead call still feels wrong when it happens on a psychiatry unit. Code blue. The words echo through hallways designed for containment and calm, not cardiac arrest. Psychiatry is supposed to be about listening, de-escalation, and meaning-making. A code…
The overhead call still feels wrong when it happens on a psychiatry unit. Code blue. The words echo through hallways designed for containment and calm, not cardiac arrest. Psychiatry is supposed to be about listening, de-escalation, and meaning-making. A code blue interrupts that narrative abruptly, reminding everyone in earshot that bodies, not diagnoses, ultimately set the terms. What struck me most was not the urgency of the response (clinicians are …
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When a code blue happens on a psychiatry unit
Physician voices
As a psychiatrist, I often find myself confronting not only the symptoms of mental illness but also the deep scars left by stigma. Even in 2025, despite advances in neuroscience and a growing cultural focus on mental health, stigma remains…
As a psychiatrist, I often find myself confronting not only the symptoms of mental illness but also the deep scars left by stigma. Even in 2025, despite advances in neuroscience and a growing cultural focus on mental health, stigma remains one of the greatest barriers to healing. It manifests in silence, shame, and misunderstanding, and it affects patients, families, and even those of us within the psychiatric profession. Addressing stigma …
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How stigma in psychiatry affects patients
Physician voices
It is a routine Saturday morning—I am sitting in my office, looking at the snowflakes dropping outside my window. As I sip on my cup of Earl Grey tea preparing my psyche for a busy day of managing an on-call…
It is a routine Saturday morning—I am sitting in my office, looking at the snowflakes dropping outside my window. As I sip on my cup of Earl Grey tea preparing my psyche for a busy day of managing an on-call shift on an acute care psychiatry floor, I am suddenly washed over by grief. A very similar Saturday a year ago, I was saying goodbye to my father as he …
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How grief transformed a psychiatrist’s approach to patient care
Physician voices
Would you ever consider a routine day at the office as how many people are going to abuse you? As a psychiatrist who works primarily in an acute care setting, I look after patients that enter the emergency room with…
Would you ever consider a routine day at the office as how many people are going to abuse you?
As a psychiatrist who works primarily in an acute care setting, I look after patients that enter the emergency room with complex mental health and social difficulties. I have been doing this work for close to a decade now. I often get asked why I choose to continue the work, and the …
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How abuse in health care is driving doctors out of medicine
Conditions and diseases
I don't know when the word burnout came into my vocabulary, but I feel that we use it constantly in our health care world today. I always thought I was immune to this concept of burnout. My self-talk was that…
I don’t know when the word burnout came into my vocabulary, but I feel that we use it constantly in our health care world today. I always thought I was immune to this concept of burnout. My self-talk was that I was strong and nothing would ever happen to me. As a psychiatrist and a yoga practitioner, I thought I was better equipped to “handle my feelings” and be in …
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How physician burnout silently creeps in and takes over
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