The proposed solution for physician “burnout” is physician resilience. The word resilience is used to blame doctors who are truly among the most resilient human beings on the planet and simply need to be treated with respect and supported in their work. If you made it into medical school you’re already in the top one percent of compassion, intelligence, and resilience. You have no resilience deficiency. You are not defective. You are responding normally to an abusive medical system as this doctor explains:

“After a forced increase in work hours to maintain productivity, my chief publicly blew up at me unprovoked in the OR like something out of a horror movie as he morphed into a monster before my eyes and triggered my PTSD. Then the male physician administrator pats my hand, oozes sympathy, and honestly said, ‘You are clearly the most burned out of our anesthesia group. Tell me how I can help you be more resilient.’ I am a 61-year-old woman who has practiced anesthesiology for nearly 30 years: I am as bloody resilient as I can be! Why does the system create an untenable set of working conditions, causing stress and exhaustion, and when the predicted outcomes occur—I am the problem!”

To prevent physician “burnout,” health care institutions may offer physician resilience workshops to train doctors to prioritize self-care and manage their emotions so they don’t become disruptive—another term that blames doctors who express feelings of despair from gaslighting. Disruptive physicians who stand up and say no to abuse are then labeled as unprofessional. The list of gaslighting terms used to manipulate and confuse doctors are too numerous to compile (though I encourage you to keep your own list at the end of this chapter).

“Despite seeing a physician on a regular basis, I had to seek psychiatric evaluation at an emergency department,” reports a trainee. “Rather than going to a facility covered by my insurance, my program insisted I come to my own hospital—what followed was an egregious violation of my health records that were modified and used against me. I was blamed for my mental health: my ‘burnout’ and my lack of ‘resilience.’ I was coerced into resignation, and I would later discover I was not the first nor the last resident in my program to experience this. I am still on the road to recovery from this harrowing situation.”

The end result of using gaslighting words that blame doctors for the abuses committed by the medical-industrial complex is physician disempowerment, hopelessness, anxiety, depression—and suicide.

Appointing chief wellness officers to help physicians with “burnout” by mandating wellness modules for the abused can be part of the problem as illustrated in the video below.

TAKE ACTION NOW

1. Always ask for precise definitions of all words used to blame doctors at your medical institution. If there is no definition or the meaning is so convoluted that you are confused, then there is a high probability the word is being used to gaslight you.

2. Ask, “What could I have done differently. What is the proposed solution?”

3. Talk to a trusted mentor to get feedback before accepting any label and definition as helpful to you.

4. Stop using gaslighting phrases like “physician burnout.” Physicians are not the problem. Victims perpetuate the cycle of abuse by using the words of their oppressors.

5. Document, document, document. Save every email and record every conversation. If you are being blamed, manipulated, and confused at work, document everything. Reference Human Rights Violations Documentation Guidelines in this book.

6. Keep a list of words used to blame doctors at your medical institution.