Consider Amy, a medical student who shares her academic community view. She mentions the grueling schedule affecting her peers, which leads to a lack of healthy hygiene as students scurry from one patient to another, learning on the job skills required to face the general public, often grabbing naps between shifts, and forever in scrubs making it easy to just stay in them for prolonged periods. There are also poor nutrition concerns that plague clinicians during their training and often into their careers, such as not having time to eat a balanced meal and settling for fast food because it is quick.

Doctors face financial concerns once they step into the professional world, including mountainous school debts and liability insurance premiums they carry to protect themselves and their livelihood. This leads to overwork and burnout at a very young age. “We need to not be trying to teach or train physicians and other health care workers to tolerate a broken practice environment,” Dr. Shanafelt said. “We need to actually fix the practice environment.”