Showing Up for Yourself in Training

"How do you keep showing up for yourself when you’re feeling burnt out, especially in medical training?"

Burnout doesn’t usually announce itself with flashing lights and a siren. It creeps in quietly. One day, I’m running on adrenaline, convinced I can do it all. The next, I realize I’ve been staring at the same sentence in my notes for ten minutes, and coffee suddenly tastes like cardboard.

In medicine, we get good at pushing through exhaustion. We wear it like a badge of honor. But the truth is, burnout isn’t just being tired. It’s a shift in how you see yourself, your work, and the people around you. It’s the slow fade of the spark that got you here in the first place.

I wish I could say I’ve avoided burnout entirely, but I haven’t. There were stretches during my clinical years when I was physically present but mentally running on fumes. The turning point came when I realized I couldn’t just wait for a break to feel like myself again. I had to actively create space for the things that recharged me, even in small doses.

For me, that looked like tiny rituals. I started my mornings with five minutes of stillness before my phone got any of my attention. I walked outside at lunch whenever I could, even if it was just to feel the sun for sixty seconds before heading back in.

Most importantly, I started checking in with myself the way I’d check on a patient. If I noticed irritability, disconnection, or that heavy feeling in my chest that had nothing to do with physical fatigue, I treated it like a vital sign out of range. That didn’t mean a weeklong vacation. Sometimes it meant texting a friend I’d been avoiding because “I was too busy.” Sometimes it meant an early bedtime without guilt.

Burnout thrives in isolation, and medicine can be isolating by design. When you feel like you must keep the facade of “I’m fine,” for your team or your peers, that only deepens the problem. The more I admitted, “I’m tired, I’m stretched thin, I need a minute,” the more I found other people felt the same. We can’t make the system less demanding overnight, but we can make it less lonely.

The other piece is giving yourself permission to protect your spark. That’s not indulgent, it’s necessary. You’re not going to be a better clinician by grinding yourself down until you’re hollow. You’re going to be better by keeping the parts of you that are curious, compassionate, and human intact.

So if you’re reading this and feeling burnt out, I’m not going to tell you to push harder. I’m going to tell you to notice the small ways you can refill your tank today, not next month. Take the walk. Call your person. Close your laptop ten minutes early if you can.

You can’t pour into others if you’ve gone completely dry. And in medicine, the best thing you can give your patients is the best version of yourself—one you’ve taken the time to protect.