The Masks We Wear to Stay Human in Medicine
There comes a moment in the life of many clinicians when fatigue no longer feels like fatigue. It becomes irritation. Then distance. Then a hardening of the voice. A patient begins to speak, and instead of attention, the doctor feels resistance. Another complaint, another demand, another endless explanation, another emotional storm to absorb. The profession that once felt meaningful begins to feel like a siege. This is dangerous not only for doctors, but for patients, teams, and institutions. We speak often about burnout as if it were only exhaustion. It is not. Burnout is also the erosion of emotional flexibility . It is the loss of inner space between what comes toward us and how we respond. When that space collapses, every difficult patient feels like a personal attack, every complaint feels unfair, every correction from leadership feels humiliating, and every working day becomes a test of survival. What, then, can a clinician do when patience is no longer natural? One answer may s...