Finding My Purpose
Reflecting on my path to becoming an anesthesiologist clinician-scientist with a focus on healthcare worker mental health and well-being.
2016: The view from my childhood home on the Connecticut shoreline, where my parents nurtured my love of science from an early age
For me, the topic of healthcare worker mental health and well-being is deeply personal. During medical school, one of my family members became critically ill, and I found myself simultaneously existing as both a medical student and a frightened loved one as I witnessed them suffer multiple in-hospital cardiac arrests. These traumatic events didn't just happen in my presence; they happened to me, altering the trajectory of my professional identity and reshaping my understanding of medicine itself. The experience profoundly affected my well-being (you can read more about that and my healing process in this JAMA Cardiology perspective piece) and attuned me to the emotional burden that healthcare workers silently carry while bearing witness to suffering.
This awakening continued months later when I returned to clinical duties in the cardiovascular intensive care unit and one of our patients rapidly decompensated despite our clinical interventions. I watched my ICU fellow press her stethoscope to the patient’s chest, and when she confirmed there were no heartbeats, tears streamed down her face as she pronounced the time of death. What followed struck me even more deeply than the loss itself: she apologized for crying. In that single moment, I saw the brokenness of medical culture. I stood there and thought, “Isn’t it wrong that we feel like we need to apologize for being human?”
I found my fellow later in the breakroom, tucked into a corner. Her white coat was off, crumpled beside her, and she expressed to me the shame she felt from having shown emotion in front of the team. Her distress mirrored my own past experience during my family member’s cardiac events. I remembered the isolation that followed my emotional response, and how medical school had conditioned me to believe that stoicism equaled competence and that a "good" physician must remain detached from suffering.
As I stood in the breakroom with her, I also suddenly understood the unique and under-recognized emotional challenges of anesthesiology, the specialty I was drawn to pursue. With an emphasis on crisis management and physiological stability, anesthesiologists are routinely exposed to catastrophic events such as cardiac and respiratory arrests, yet the literature on the emotional impact of these experiences on them is extremely sparse and clinicians often suffer in silence. I instantly realized that addressing emotional well-being wasn't just personally meaningful, but that it was professionally essential in the field I was choosing.
That moment in the ICU became my turning point, when I knew I would dedicate my research and advocacy to addressing mental health challenges among healthcare workers, particularly anesthesiologists. I had a strong interest in mental health since undergrad, but always struggled to find its harmony with my other interests. In that breakroom, I finally understood how it would integrate seamlessly into my career plans.
An executive coach recently asked me, “What do you think your purpose is in the world?” I would not have been able to answer that question before, but now I know my purpose is twofold: (1) to be a direct healing presence for others and (2) to use my intellectual curiosity and interest in scientific discovery to relieve the suffering of others at individual, local, and system levels. I know that my purpose is to be applied to the healthcare worker mental health and well-being space, and I now see a vision for my career that is starting to actualize.
2025: Standing in artist Morgan Granzow’s studio as a researcher grant-funded at the intersection of anesthesiology, clinician well-being, and medical humanities
That being said, I initially struggled with not seeing anyone in my community who was doing what I wanted to do. Truly, there was no medical student, resident, or faculty member at my institution who was living my dream, and I questioned if it was actually possible. I also faced naysayers who voiced their belief that my path was too unconventional in anesthesiology. The gravitational pull and external pressure toward traditional research, such as physiological studies or computational biology that would leverage my engineering background, threatened to redirect my journey away from what I knew in my heart to be right for me. But, the universe sent me a gift: a mentor who had himself reimagined his career beyond conventional boundaries, who planted in me the courage to choose fulfillment and nurture a vision that was uniquely mine without seeking external validation.
I heard my feelings during this time described perfectly on a New England Journal of Medicine podcast by Dr. Morgan Hennessy, a surgeon who followed her unique career ambitions despite external pressure: “I was told that I would be wasting my talents going into [my] field. And many people were not supportive. But I had to follow the path that I was on for myself… these other people didn’t have to live my life — only I did.”
Through shedding others’ expectations, I came to strongly believe that we each have more data points about who we are and what we’re working towards than anyone else. Once I started to trust and walk in alignment with my purpose, things started moving very quickly; I wrote compelling and successful research grant applications, met fantastic people across the country who work in the healthcare worker well-being space, and matched into my first choice residency program that sees the value in my dreams and is equipped to support them.
I find wisdom in Steve Jobs' words: "you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will connect in your future." Standing between my past selves and future self, I now see how each seemingly disconnected chapter was necessary preparation for the work I'm meant to do. I've inhabited many identities in this decade-long journey: the engineering major conducting women's mental health research, feeling like a stranger in both worlds; the engineering graduate who puzzled colleagues by pivoting to social work and counseling; the medical student drawn to mental health but searching beyond psychiatry for her place; and finally, the anesthesiology resident excited to weave mental health and well-being work into her practice. For years, I couldn't glimpse the integration that now seems so clear. Yet, each seemingly disjointed experience was equipping me with the skills my future work demands. This winding path, with all its uncertainty and questioning, molded me into someone far more capable and whole than any direct route ever could have.
2017: My first-ever research presentation, for a project I loved to the point of confusion, as it made me wonder how I could reconcile my seemingly disparate interests in mental health and engineering. Now, this type of qualitative analysis is one of my biggest assets in anesthesiology research
Looking back, I recognize the orchestration of timing that no perfect plan could have ever engineered, as each detour and delay was necessary preparation for work that simply wasn't ready for me until I was ready for it. I know now that these were not detours, but essential transformations. I learned that we need to have faith in our vision for ourselves and know that the person we are going to become is going to emerge, never too early or too late. The universe, it seems, has a rhythm far more sophisticated than our five-year plans, revealing each step only when we've gathered the precise constellation of experiences needed to take it.
2019: At my biomedical engineering graduation ceremony, where some questioned my choice to take a minimum-wage social work job in rural Michigan instead of climbing the engineering corporate ladder
If you find yourself in an in-between place, trust that your seemingly disparate dots are forming a pattern more beautiful and purposeful than you can perceive right now. As I continue on my journey to improve healthcare worker mental health and well-being, I invite you to embrace your own winding path, as it's often in the unexpected turns that we discover our purpose.
2025: Graduating from medical school, confident in my purpose and path forward
Be well,
Courtney
Find me on the following social media platforms:
Twitter/X: @CourtneyBurnsMD
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/courtneyjburnsmd
Bluesky: @CourtneyJBurnsMD.bsky.social
Instagram: @CourtneyJBurnsMD
Views are my own and are not medical advice.