A Four-Letter Word in Medicine

Many approaches to burnout and compassion fatigue in medicine do not focus on the reason most physicians went into practice, namely love. And we do not explicitly think of our daily work in these terms. If we believe our job is to help others in a very task-oriented sense and we are not able to succeed or a patient has a poor outcome, we can miss the fact that often our simply being present is what is needed. Refocusing on our love of others in our work whether they are patients, colleagues, or administrators can reinvigorate our experience and make us happier people in the process.