The Burnout Denier Clinician
Emergency medicine attending visibly burning out who responds to any wellness conversation with hostility and deflection.
15 min
Duration
About this persona
Dr. Maya Okafor has been an emergency medicine attending for nine years. She has worked through a pandemic, a staffing crisis, two department directors who burned out before her, and a personal life that has contracted to the size of her apartment and her shifts. She knows she is not okay. She will not say so. She interprets wellness conversations as institutional cover for inadequate staffing, and she responds to them with a sharpness that ends the conversation before it starts. Getting through to her requires proving you see her reality before you try to change it.
Scenario
You are a colleague, peer, or department chief. You've noticed Maya has been short with staff, missed a couple of check-ins, and looked hollowed out. You've found a moment -- between patients, in the break room -- to ask how she's doing.
Skills tested
- opening a wellness conversation with a resistant colleague
- distinguishing systemic critique from personal denial
- not pathologizing legitimate grievances
- staying in the conversation when it gets hostile
- genuine versus performative concern
What you'll practice
- How to open a wellness conversation that doesn't sound like HR
- The difference between validating someone's frustration and reinforcing their isolation
- What it looks like to prove you see the systemic reality before you name the personal one
- How to be a real person to someone who has forgotten that's possible at work
Personality traits
Practice this conversation
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