What if burnout is the wrong word for what doctors are actually going through? Gus W. Krucke argues that calling physicians burned out treats a systemic failure as a personal one, and that physicians are not failing, they are grieving a profession that has changed around them. Using a malpractice case over a reversal drug, he shows how doctors are judged in retrospect for decisions made under pressure in the moment, and how that fear drives a culture of self-protection. He draws a sharp line between resilience, which he says blames the physician, and fortitude, the quality he believes every doctor who finished training already has. Krucke is a board-certified internal medicine and emergency medicine physician and a certified hospice medical director. This episode is based on his article "Physician burnout is not the whole diagnosis," published on KevinMD. Press play to hear why protecting your judgment, your presence, and your fortitude matters more than any metric, and why burnout was never the whole diagnosis.

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