Abstract
[This is an excerpt.] Burnout is pervasive in the medical community. Like most U.S. medical students, I went straight from university to medical school without a break. As a third-year medical student, I reached my breaking point. Academically, things were fine, but behind that façade, my life had become so scholastically slanted that I could no longer recognize myself. I stopped exercising, quit my favorite hobbies, and neglected my family and friends. I had become caught in the “academic current”—a collective group ambition that, when appropriately harnessed, spurs scientific breakthroughs and drives clinical mastery, but when left unchecked, can pull trainees under. At a proverbial fork in the river, I decided to get out of the water. [To read more, click View Resource.]
