A writer friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that a Substack she’d written had felt scary and vulnerable to post. Jane writes a lot about her experiences as a complicated medical patient and probably knows more about implantable devices than most physicians. She speaks knowledgeably and confidently to medical groups at professional conferences. But recently she has felt herself pushing toward a more spiritual side of health. (It might be more accurate to say that the spirits are pulling her.) She has a reputation as a well-informed, articulate speaker with something compelling to teach us about healthcare. Now she worries that if she were to talk about the more soulful, the more spiritual aspects of the health experience, she would damage that reputation among those for whom “the woo” (as she puts it) may not be welcome.
I have been having my own struggles with the woo lately. So many of us in healthcare are leaving once-loved jobs that no longer hold joy. Those of us who are staying are looking for ways to heal ourselves from the moral distress we experience when the values and vows we brought with us to this profession no longer align with what is being asked of us. We bear witness to great suffering every day, sitting with our patients through their grief and loss, their trauma and pain. But we are suffering now too, hungry for connection with our patients, more authentic relationships with our colleagues, more heart in our work. Maybe we could use a little woo.
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Endeavoring to help my fellow physicians, I wrote a book, Writing Through Burnout: How to Thrive While Working in Healthcare, forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press in 2026 in which I use reflective writing as a modality to help us heal. In it, I cite studies documenting the effects of stress on the immune system, cortisol responses to writing about failure, and the value of a reflective practice in medical education. I explore the role of creative writing in counselor self-care, trauma narratives in healing processes, and randomized controlled trials of gratitude interventions to improve provider well-being. My book is heavily researched and evidence-based.
But it also discusses setting intentions, self-affirmations, the influence of creativity on meaning in life, and wonder and awe as a pathway to health. I look at mindfulness in medicine, and the role of the arts in promoting flourishing. In other words, there is plenty of woo amongst the wisdom, passion alongside pure wonk.
I combed through hundreds of articles in preparing to write my book, going where the science led me. I read nearly fifty books in researching my own. As much as I tried to write a solidly evidence-based manuscript, I knew my solution to burnout wouldn’t appeal to everyone. So, when I solicited beta readers (two physicians, and two nurse practitioners) to give me feedback on my first draft, one of my asks was to identify for me any areas they felt were “too woo.”
The results surprised me: No one found any woo at all (or at least they weren’t bothered by it.) My former residency director, who has authored over 300 articles himself and given over 100 presentations at national and international pediatric meetings, called the book “valuable and powerful,” not mentioning woo once. Another beta reader, an older doc who was one of the first cohorts to complete the evidence-based medicine curriculum at MacMaster’s University in Ontario, EBM’s mecca, dismissed the question about the woo factor with a wave of his hand. He held up my spiral bound manuscript that he had just finished saying, “Seriously, this is a winner.” My midwife beta reader actually wanted more woo.
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Even the oldest continuously running university press in the country seems to be embracing the woo (or at least acknowledging alternative strategies to countering burnout.) While my peer reviewers did ask for newer research in some areas and more up-to-date studies to support some of my claims, they also cited the chapter on setting intentions as one that landed as “a fresh and helpful approach.”
When we talk about healing in medicine these days, we are just as likely to be talking about the healer as the patient. Doctors and nurses are struggling with stress and burnout and looking for solutions in places they may never have looked before. The growth of physician coaching programs is booming. Healthcare institutions are grappling with poor retention and are recognizing that offering programs in wellness are vital for our profession’s survival.
Jane and I are both re-calibrating our thinking when it comes to our interactions with academia. Our trepidation at their responses to our use of the soulful alongside the scientific in our work may have been unfounded. Instead of keeping her spiritual explorations completely removed from her role as patient advocate and healthcare lecturer, Jane is considering incorporating the more spectral elements of her beliefs and experience into her presentations to physicians and seeing how it goes. I am challenging my assumptions about my own colleagues, leaning into an approach that recognizes a hunger for meaning and joy while adhering to my scientific training with its evidence-based roots and tendencies.
In crafting a book focused on reflective writing as burnout solution, I have had to navigate that liminal space between the science and the art of medicine. To respect the richness of research and evidence while honoring the internal experience of medicine, in patient as well as practitioner. If woo is having a moment, we must meet that moment where it is, incorporating approaches to burnout and moral distress that work for all of us.
When we talk about healing in medicine these days, we are just as likely to be talking about the healer as the patient.
