As a physician associate/assistant (PA), I have the privilege and responsibility of caring for people of all ages and backgrounds. Some people are very ill, others need a checkup or have a minor illness or injury. Some have questions about their health, a genetic risk, or lifestyle goals. Some suffer in physical or emotional realms that are hard to name. Each day, we walk into the lives of our patients with open hearts, having learned to maintain professional boundaries that provide objectivity in evaluating their concerns.

Our training, experience, and skills create fluency in diagnostics. With time we practice intuitively, reading demeanor, noticing tone of voice. We read between the lines of the medical history, the list of medicines, teasing out the story. I have witnessed the cumulative sorrows and joys of thousands in my care. I share in heartbreaks and celebrate milestones. These thousands of conversations—teaching about disease; how to heal or avoid an injury; giving counsel on child development, aging, parenting—are the core of what we do. This is a privilege.

Yet if we are to remain effective, we must learn the art of self-care. We often burn out from this intense interpersonal engagement paired with incessant administrative and institutional demands. More demands are placed on healthcare providers all the time. The constant psychologic, institutional, and physical demands take their toll; resources stretch thin and seasoned clinicians leave practice entirely. Our institutions grow top-heavy with administrators who were once clinicians. Those of us in practice face more benchmarks, metrics, and hoops to jump through to be paid fairly. Less investment is directed to staff, nursing, clerical, and professional development. Sometimes this feels intentional, distancing us from the belief in our own power to affect patient outcomes that first brought us to the bedside. For many, a passion for science or a desire to help others recede as we experience increasing stress. Business-centered leadership strategies hurt us all as we are less able to craft our approaches to practice. We lose control over staffing, scheduling, recruitment, and retention as well as the ability to set a tone for our practices. We feel choked, voiceless in the machine that determines our careers. We go unrecognized for our hard-earned competencies to navigate the complexity of modern medicine and are pushed to click more boxes to simply be paid for our work.

Studying yoga for the past 15 years and now teaching these practices has noticeably improved my work-life balance. Exploring the practices and philosophy of yoga has helped me avoid internalizing the frustrations that come with this work. Yoga has helped me learn more skillful ways to navigate the boundaries I need to maintain while in constant relationship with people who want and need more from me. Yoga is not a way to tune out but to tune in, and it remains a privilege to share these teachings. I have offered a free weekly class for my coworkers for the past 7 years. We come together, savoring the ancient practices that cut to the core, that teach us to breathe, allow us to reflect, clear our minds, persuading us to put down the electronic and be in our bodies. We begin to rediscover ourselves. Practicing every day, even for a short time, reestablishes my balance and perspective. I look up and out into the world, see more than my own small cubicle or examination room.

Can we reimagine the image of the clinician whose head is down, typing while patients talk? Can we sit with patients and scratch notes, read their faces and body language, feel for the spaces between the sentences? Can we give them time to tell their story and listen respectfully?

Recalling these techniques, getting back in touch with whatever mindful practices once nourished you, and incorporating new ways of bringing mindfulness into your practice will prove a buffer against burnout as we craft new models of patient care to enrich what we do, on and off the mat.