burnout

Beyond Burnout: Moral Injury in Medicine

Burnout implies weakness.
Moral injury names reality.

When physicians are blocked from delivering the care they know patients need — by coverage denials, deductible resets, or system collapse — it leaves a wound that no amount of grit can heal.

We don’t call that what it is often enough: moral injury.

The Anatomy of a Hidden Wound

Moral injury isn’t about endurance. It’s about conflict — the chasm between what you know is right and what you’re allowed to do.

It’s watching a patient’s condition worsen because their insurance didn’t approve the scan.

It’s telling someone, “We’ll try again with insurance,” and carrying the knowledge that waiting will cost them.

That dissonance doesn’t stay in your mind — it lands in your body.

Studies from the National Academy of Medicine (2022) describe moral injury as a central driver of physician distress, distinct from burnout. It’s not exhaustion; it’s embodiment — cortisol spikes, muscle tension, disrupted sleep, and the steady erosion of clarity and compassion.

The Human Cost

Every policy ripple becomes a personal one. When claims stall and safety-net programs freeze, care delays multiply. Physicians absorb that impact in silence — double-checking labs, rewriting notes, staying late “just to make sure.”

The AAMC projects a shortage of 124,000 physicians by 2036. The loss isn’t just workforce attrition — it’s moral attrition, as clinicians who once led with purpose leave to survive.

What Helps

Healing doesn’t come from resilience slogans or bubble baths. It comes from resetting the nervous system that’s been living in fight-or-flight for too long.

That’s where EMDR Intensives come in: three to five half-day sessions designed for physicians who can’t do months of weekly therapy but know something has to shift.

We work not through endless talking, but through the brain’s own capacity to reprocess stress at its source.

You can’t fix insurance policy overnight.

But you can reclaim your calm, your clarity, your capacity to be present — in medicine and at home.

Learn more here

References



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Meet Katherine Driskell

About Katherine
Helping people find their clear blue sky possibilities after their storm
Katherine Driskell, MSW, LICSW has been in the non-profit and mental health space for more than 20 years. With experience in therapy with clients from 8 to 80+, in a variety of settings, she is able to start with clients where they are, and help them reach their goals. 
She is a certified EMDR Therapist and Consultant-In-Training through EMDRIA and a Certified HeartMath Interventions Practitioner. She is a member of the Minnesota Society for Clinical Social Work.

She focuses on motivated clients with clear goals. She helps them meet their goals through short-term intensive work focused directly on the origins of the blocks and beliefs that hold them back. She works with high-achieving professionals and performers as well as individuals who have experienced traumas big and small. Located in the heart of the Destination Medical Center district in Rochester, Minnesota, she loves working with patients and their loved ones, doctors and providers to overcome the medical trauma that is sometimes part of healing and illness. She combines mental health and counseling knowledge and skills with cutting edge, research-supported approaches to remove barriers to achieving potential.  

She has worked for the State of Minnesota providing mental health care to clients with chronic mental and behavioral challenges. She was in a leadership position at the Mayo Clinic for five years before joining a local non-profit organization to guide a program providing mental health therapists to provide care in schools.

Katherine is available for Consultation for EMDR Therapists who have completed EMDRIA-Approved Basic Training and want to pursue certification.  Click here to join the next cohort. 

Katherine has also provided license supervision to social workers and professional clinical counselors for nearly a decade. She sought supervision outside of her place of employment as well, knowing the value of an outside perspective and the protected space to grow that comes from a dedicated supervisory relationship. Clinicians must continually reflect on their own well-being and responses to the work they do with clients. In a safe, nurturing supervisory relationship, clinicians can become the healers they seek to be. Each year she takes on a small cohort of Clinical Social Workers and candidates for licensure as Professional Clinical Counselors for license supervision. Reach out to get on the waiting list for the next cohort here




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