Energy Management Is an Inside Job: What Every Physician Needs to Know

As physicians, we've been trained to push through. To ignore our bodies' signals. To put patient care above all else—including our own wellbeing.

When I was coaching several physicians last week, two of them shared the same "win": they had called out sick the previous Friday. The fact that we consider this basic act of self-care a triumphant achievement speaks volumes about our profession's unhealthy relationship with energy management.

The Tank Nobody Can See

We all have an energy tank. It gets filled through sleep, nutrition, connection, and self-care. It gets drained through work, stress, decision-making, and simply the passage of time.

The critical truth we must accept is this: no one can see our energy levels but us.

Our colleagues can't see how depleted we are. Our administrators can't see the size of our tank. Our teams can't see how quickly our energy is draining on a particular day. Yet we often operate as though everyone should magically know our capacity and limits.

The healthcare system compounds this problem by pretending we all have identical energy reserves. The pregnant physician, the physician with chronic pain, the physician caring for aging parents; all are expected to perform at the same level as everyone else.

Why We Must Take Responsibility

Energy management must become our responsibility because no one else will do it for us. This means:

1. Recognizing our current life stage and its impact on our energy. Are we new parents? Managing health challenges? Caring for elderly parents? Our energy tank fluctuates with these life circumstances.
2. Setting proactive boundaries. If we know we need to leave on time today, we must communicate that. If we're sick and know we can't provide quality care, we must make the hard choice to call out.
3. Acknowledging when our practice environment doesn't match our energy style. Some of us work well in fast-paced settings with 15-minute appointments. Others need more time with each patient. Neither is wrong; but being in the wrong environment for your style is unsustainable.

The Bigger Picture

When we push through despite depleted energy, we perpetuate a broken system. We reinforce the expectation that physicians should sacrifice their wellbeing for patient care. We model unhealthy behavior for our colleagues and trainees.

But when we honor our energy limits, when we call out sick when necessary, when we set boundaries around scheduling, when we seek practice environments that align with our energy style, we contribute to meaningful culture change in medicine.

We demonstrate that sustainable practice is possible. We show that high-quality patient care and physician well-being aren't mutually exclusive goals.

Most importantly, we affirm a truth that's easy to forget in our achievement-oriented profession: who we are and what we do matters. We deserve to practice medicine in a way that honors our humanity, including our very real energy limitations.

Our energy management is indeed an inside job—one that requires courage, self-awareness, and the deep belief that our wellbeing matters just as much as our patients'.