Wellness Gone Awry: How Helpful Hints Might Be Harmful

Physician burnout is increasingly recognized as a crisis across health care systems, with Wellness committees and Wellness officers becoming commonplace in large institutions. Unfortunately, these well-intended bodies often propagate the message that individuals are responsible for solving their own burnout, minimizing the importance of institutional responsibility in the problem. This essay explores the parallels between current Wellness initiatives and the petrochemical industry, specifically focusing on their messaging efforts and the role of implied blame and subsequent felt shame. It then explores how systematic efforts to push back against the petrochemical industry might serve as a model upon which to base future Wellness efforts.