The Year I Lost Joy in Medicine

In this perspective piece, I explore an incredibly challenging year of my life: the year I lost joy in medicine. It was unexpected, yet not unsurprising, for me to feel this way given the seismic changes that occurred in my department: multiple leadership transitions, a pandemic, and significant faculty attrition. I wanted my clinical work to be enough to sustain me when I had lost academic mentorship and sponsorship, but the dysfunctional environment leached the joy out of my work and caused me to contemplate leaving my institution and leaving medicine altogether. Ultimately, several changes occurred that caused me to remain at my institution and helped me to regain my joy in the practice of medicine. My experience informed my understanding that small but significant shifts in compensation, schedules, and administrative work can help retain physicians. As we contemplate a shortage of physicians, institutions need to focus on acknowledging physicians for our work and rebuilding joy into our careers.