The American Medical Association released its 2025 burnout numbers last month. 41.9% of physicians reported at least one symptom of burnout — down from 48.2% in 2023. The headline: progress.
Here's what didn't make the headline.
In the same reporting period, nearly six in ten physicians experienced inappropriate anger, tearfulness, or anxiety. Nearly half withdrew from family, friends, or coworkers. Both figures are statistically similar to the worst years of the pandemic.
The AMA is measuring one thing. Physicians are living a different reality.
A social work mentor told me something years ago that I've never forgotten. He said: you're not an angry person. So if you ever find yourself always angry, that's not a character flaw — that's information. It means something is wrong with your environment.
Physicians know how to read data. What the field hasn't taught — what medicine actively discourages — is reading yourself as a data point.
The inappropriate anger stat isn't about the colleagues who have lower standards than you. It isn't proof that you care more. It's a signal. And if it's been long enough, it may not even register as anger anymore. It registers as Tuesday.
Nobody chose this path for a diminished personal life.
You started medical school with a picture of what this would look like — the work, yes, but also the life around it. The relationships. The capacity to be present. The life and adventures with people you love outside of the clinic. Somewhere in the training, then the practice, then the grind of the grind, withdrawal started to look like introversion. Irritability started to look like high standards. Exhaustion started to look like dedication.
The Physicians Foundation found that nearly half of physicians are pulling back from the people around them. That's not a personality type. That's a nervous system that has absorbed more than it was designed to hold, spending that cost somewhere — and the somewhere is usually the people who matter most.
EMDR doesn't teach you to manage this better. It addresses what's driving it.
The withdrawal, the anger that doesn't quite fit, the gap between the life you imagined and the one you're living — these aren't permanent features of a career in medicine. They're signals that something needs to be processed, not managed.
Intensive EMDR was built for people who cannot slow down long enough for weekly therapy — who need something that works on their schedule, outside their system, without a paper trail. Three to five half-days. Confidential. Out of network. Designed around the reality of how physicians actually live.
What would it mean to have your off hours back?
Strategy sessions are complimentary and confidential. You can book one here →
SOURCES
AMA 2025 Organizational Biopsy: ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/physician-burnout-rate-continues-decline-falling-nearly-42
Physicians Foundation 2025 Wellbeing Survey: physiciansfoundation.org/research/the-state-of-americas-physicians-2025-wellbeing-survey
Katherine Driskell is an EMDR therapist based in Minnesota, serving clients across the state and via intensive format. She additionally is licensed in Wisconsin and Massachusetts.
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