Burnout doesn’t always come like a storm.
Sometimes, it’s quiet — insidious — like a slow poison that seeps into your days.
You don’t notice it at first. You tell yourself you’re just tired, that things will get better after one more shift, one more duty, one more week.
Until one day, you realize you’ve been running on empty for far too long.

That’s where I found myself.
Working seven days a week, caught in a rinse-and-repeat cycle that never seemed to end. My life revolved around hospital walls and patient charts, while my own mind and heart grew distant. Somewhere in the process of saving lives, I forgot to save my own.

Maybe you’ve felt that too — the exhaustion that doesn’t go away with sleep, the heaviness you can’t explain. The sense that you’ve lost the why behind what you do.

I kept telling myself it was just part of the job — that this is what being a doctor meant. But in truth, I was burning out slowly, silently. My passion was dimming, my joy fading. And that scared me more than anything.

So I made a choice.
A hard one.
I let go of one hospital — not out of weakness, but out of the need to heal.
To reclaim my peace. To protect my marriage. To be present for my family.

Yes, I might lose a bit of money.
But I’ll gain something far more valuable: rest, clarity, and a chance to breathe again.
And maybe, that’s how you start to turn the page.

If you’re reading this, and you’ve felt what I have,
there might be some sort of poison slowly creeping into you too.
Before it takes you, try to pause. Reflect, and ask yourself — am I still happy?
You can’t pour from an empty cup.
You can’t heal others while you’re breaking inside.
You cannot give what you don’t have.

It’s okay to rest.
It’s okay to let go.
It’s okay to choose peace.

Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is to turn the page —
and start again.

Dr. A