Practicing medicine now, in this day and age, may be another kind of traumatic stress, and one that is new to a younger generation of doctors. Imagine not knowing how you will get financed two years from now and if the government will cut your funding. A lot of us can relate.

This inability to punch the clock and put our doctor-ness away until our next shift is, I think, a major contributor to the epidemic of physician burnout.

Being a doctor is stressful. Continuously caring and being empathetic is an impossible expectation. When doctors are under stress the first thing that goes is the ability to listen and care. Unfortunately, these are also the two most important things to you as the patient.