Dr. Mary Fariba Afsari

I mean, it's such an important question.

And people don't necessarily know how much the burnout of physicians impacts their overall sort of mental state and physical well-being.

Physicians in this country and especially so female physicians in this country have four times the suicide rate of any other profession.

They absolutely do.

And why do you think that is?

I know.

I'm always asked, like, what is that?

And I don't have the exact answer for it.

I don't have the statistics or the data or the understanding of why that is.

But I do know that there's something about the compassion fatigue that I believe happens alongside sort of the expectations of what it is to be a working woman in this country or working mother in this country.

And I think...

There's got to be something in that tension that has made it even more difficult for female physicians, even though I know plenty of male physicians who have also felt that emotional burden.

And, you know, we don't do a very good job of taking care of our doctors.

We don't have a lot of support.

We tend to go from trauma to seeing the next patient within minutes.

There's not a lot of recovery because physicians, for the most part, they're a pretty resourceful bunch.

They have a pretty high resilience.

And so if physicians are feeling the burnout, I really think it's from a lack of

advocacy for what needs to happen in order to support the doctors who you are putting out on the front line, things like technologic support.

Things like having more time with patients, things like not expecting somebody to work for 24 hours.