A compassionate guide to writing your way back to purpose for healthcare professionals. Physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals are leaving medicine in record numbers due in large part to exhaustion, disillusionment, and a profound loss of joy in their work. In A Prescription for Burnout: Restorative Writing for Healthcare Professionals, Carolyn Roy-Bornstein, MD, offers a powerful, science-backed remedy to burnout in the healthcare field: reflective writing. This guide is a structured, compassionate companion for those who want to stay in the profession they once loved and renew their sense of purpose. The book is organized around the three dimensions of burnout identified by psychologist Christina Maslach-emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a perceived lack of efficacy. Each chapter introduces a focused writing practice to help clinicians reconnect with their values, strengthen empathy, and rediscover meaning in their work. Dr. Roy-Bornstein brings more than three decades of experience as a nurse, pediatrician, and narrative medicine educator to this deeply personal and practical work. She knows firsthand how writing can transform grief, trauma, and professional disillusionment into clarity, self-awareness, and healing. These evidence-based and insightful exercises are designed to be brief yet sustaining antidotes to the pace and pressures of modern healthcare. Whether used privately or in groups, in early training or late-career reflection, A Prescription for Burnout offers clinicians not just strategies for surviving the system but tools to reclaim their voice-and their vocation.
Carolyn Roy-Bornstein, MD, FAAP, is a board-certified pediatrician and the writer-in-residence at the Lawrence Family Medicine Residency program. She is the author of Through Thick and Thin: One Foster Family's Eating Disorder Journey and Crash: A Mother, a Son, and the Journey from Grief to Gratitude.
Table of Contents Acknowledgements Section One: Addressing Emotional Exhaustion Introduction 1. Writing for Physical Health 2. Writing as Opportunity for Self-Reflection 3. Writing to Bear Witness 4. Writing as the Heart's Back Door 5. Writing as Trauma Narrative 6. Writing to Build Resilience 7. Writing to Increase Self-Awareness 8. Writing to Develop Our Professional Identity 9. Writing for Mindfulness 10. Writing as Gratitude Section Two: Countering Cynicism 11. Writing to Listen 12. Writing to Improve Our Powers of Observation 13. Writing to Strengthen Our Relationships 14. Writing to Gain Perspective 15. Writing to Enhance Empathy 16. Writing as Self-Compassion 17. Writing to Foster Self-Confidence 18. Working for Work-Life Balance 19. Writing Toward Optimism 20. Writing to Set an Intention Section Three: Restoring Self-Efficacy 21. Writing to Find the Wisdom Within 22. Writing to Cultivate a Sense of Wonder 23. Writing to Regain Our Sense of Agency 24. Writing to Flourish 25. Writing to Unleash Creativity 26. Writing to Increase Tolerance of Ambiguity and Cultivate Openness 27. Writing for Connection 28. Writing Toward Joy 29. Writing Toward Meaning 30. Where Do We Go from Here? Writing as a Way of Life About the Author
A compassionate guide to writing your way back to purpose for healthcare professionals.
