Physician Work Dread: Why You Don’t Want to Go to Work (And What Actually Helps) | Ep32
Do you know that heaviness in your chest on Sunday afternoon, or the moment you sit in the parking lot, unable to get out of the car, even though you're not burned out or ready to quit? What if that 'work dread' isn't telling you to leave medicine, but to look more closely at what's really weighing you down?
In this episode of Better Physician Life, host Dr. Michael Hersh dives into "work dread", the chest-tightening resistance, parking-lot hesitation, and mental preoccupation that hits before patients arrive or the week begins. Drawing from his own years of dreading Mondays, sitting in the car scrolling, and fantasizing about retirement as escape, he explains why this feeling is so common for physicians and rarely means you need to blow up your career.
Instead of vague dread signaling "something's wrong with me or my job," it's often information about specific frustrations buried under administrative burdens, inefficiencies, and the habit of delaying relief. Dr. Hersh shares how naming the exact triggers (overwhelm, skipped meals, dreaded tasks) shrinks the feeling, opens small solvable shifts, like insisting on a lunch break, and helps separate real annoyances from the story that "life only gets better once this is over."
He introduces the free Five Minute Commute Reset, a guided audio and worksheet to interrupt automatic bracing and create space before/after work. This episode is for any physician who's physically present but mentally already dreading the next shift, offering clarity, compassion, and practical steps without forcing positivity or major life changes.
Free 5-Minute Commute Reset for Physicians: betterphysicianlife.com/commutereset
About the Show:
Created for physicians who want more than clinical competence, Better Physician Life is a space for honest reflection, reinvention, and reclaiming purpose beyond the pager.
Hosted by Dr. Michael Hersh, each episode dives into the questions we didn’t learn to ask in training, offering tools and conversations to help you live and lead with intention
Top 3 Takeaways:
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Name It to Tame It: Vague dread feels overwhelming and final—"I don't want to do this anymore"—but getting specific—"What exactly am I dreading today?"—reveals targeted issues like overwhelm, skipped lunch, or frustrating admin tasks. Naming shrinks the heaviness, turns it into solvable problems, and stops it from collapsing the whole job into "the problem."
- Stop Arguing with Reality: Physicians are conditioned to delay gratification, "once I get through this phase...", so dread often comes from bracing ahead of time or telling yourself relief is only post-retirement. Reframing work as something to show up for—not just endure—frees mental energy and reduces the weight of unhelpful stories about the day.
- Small Shifts Create Big Relief: Push for tiny, realistic changes like scheduling a protected lunch on busy days despite pushback, rather than waiting for the perfect job or exit. These build evidence that you can influence your day without dramatic overhauls, while tools like the Five Minute Commute Reset interrupt the pre-work dread cycle.
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