From the Soul on Call series
Note: These reflections are fictional and educational in nature. They are not medical advice and do not reflect the views of any institution or employer.
Monday came, as it always did, and Dr. Solan Call stood just inside the glass doors of Overcare Memorial Hospital, breathing in the faint scent of disinfectant and burnt coffee.
He squinted up at the flickering fluorescent light above the entry badge scanner. The hum of a rolling vitals cart passed behind him. Somewhere down the hallway, a printer jammed with enthusiasm.
He winced—not from pain exactly, but from a familiar weight settling into his chest. Not dread. Not despair. Just… depletion.
The week ahead was routine: consults on the medical ward, rounds with the residents, two family meetings, one departmental gathering he’d already renamed The Meeting That Could’ve Been an Email.
He wasn’t in crisis. He was in rhythm.
And that, oddly, was the problem.
He wasn’t drinking too much. He wasn’t missing work. He hadn’t googled “how to disappear into a forest and still pay your mortgage.”
(Not recently, anyway.)
By most accounts, he was doing fine.
His inbox was under control. His patients were seen. His discharge summaries were timely. His notes—concise, legible, occasionally poetic—were considered among the best in the department. He was functional. Helpful. A team player.
And yet there was a quiet kind of tired in him that sleep didn’t fix.
It wasn’t depression, exactly. He’d screened himself.
No anhedonia. No early morning wakening. No suicidal ideation.
His appetite was fine. He laughed at memes.
But beneath the smooth mechanics of daily life, something in him felt slightly… misaligned. Like a joint bearing weight the wrong way—quiet, but persistent.
He noticed it most on Mondays. The calendar looked full, but not unfamiliar. Everything accounted for. Nothing particularly wrong.
And yet, there was a dull resistance inside him.
Like walking into wind.
Like a voice saying, very softly:
“Again?”
He didn’t feel burned out.
He felt like he was disappearing into the role.
No one tells you that burnout doesn’t always look like collapse.
Sometimes, it looks like complete notes, fast follow-ups, and perfect punctuality—while something essential inside you quietly powers down.
It took him a while to notice. Because on the surface, he was doing everything right.
He was showing up, being useful, staying late. He wasn’t resentful—not really. He cared. He was good at his job.
But his job was starting to take up more space than he did.
He wasn’t sure when he stopped listening to music. Or reading. Or calling friends without scheduling it two weeks out.
He hadn’t meant to stop.
It had been a slow slide into default settings.
He realized it only after taking a real break.
A full one.
He traveled. Walked unfamiliar streets. Forgot his EMR password.
Sat by windows and watched things bloom.
Wrote a few bad poems. Remembered that he had once wanted to write a novel. Or a play. Or anything at all.
He began to sense a version of himself that had gone quiet:
Curious. Creative. Slightly ridiculous.
Human.
He didn’t quit medicine. He didn’t start a blog or move to Costa Rica. (That idea belonged to someone else—probably Dr. Zen E. Flow, the attending who did mindfulness rounds in the staff kitchen.)
But Solan did begin a quieter recalibration.
He started asking different questions:
– Who am I when I’m not being useful?
– What have I set down that once made me feel alive?
– What does wholeness look like—not just competence?
He began to notice the invisible contract he’d signed:
That to be a good doctor, he had to be available. Selfless. Tireless.
That rest had to be earned.
That the work came first.
And he realized the system didn’t write that contract alone.
He had signed it, too.
And maybe—just maybe—he could revise it.
Burnout, he learned, wasn’t always about collapse.
Sometimes, it was about absence.
The absence of joy.
The absence of self.
The slow substitution of personhood with profession.
And the path back wasn’t dramatic.
It started with noticing:
– What softens me?
– What lights me up?
– What have I neglected that I actually need?
Joy, it turned out, was quieter than he remembered.
But it was still there.
He just had to make enough space to hear it.
Want to take this further?
This week’s companion tool, The Self Beneath the Badge, offers five reflection prompts to help you explore the quiet ways identity, worth, and selfhood can get lost in the rhythm of being “useful.” It’s not about fixing anything—just noticing what’s been left behind, and what’s still possible to reclaim.
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