The abounding negativity of my first year of medical school was best exemplified by a preparatory class entitled "How to Survive the Spring Semester." Physician burnout is an epidemic that may begin in the classrooms and cadaver labs of medical schools with scare tactics, fatalistic messaging, and a pervasive "culture of burnout." Medical education's axiom-"if I suffered through it, so should you"-is a persistent disservice to students who must survive medical school, just in time to burnout as physicians. I wonder if combating physician burnout could start with medical schools, which must stop sowing the seeds of burnout in students. Medical educators can start by reevaluating the words and tone they strike with the physicians of the future.
Keywords: Burnout; Hidden curriculum; Undergraduate medical education.
© International Association of Medical Science Educators 2019.