Working as a medical professional in an over-stressed system is demoralizing, perhaps in some ways similar to how being stuck in standstill traffic is stressful

Working as a medical professional in an over-stressed system is demoralizing, perhaps in some ways similar to how being stuck in standstill traffic is stressful (even though perhaps there's no reason it must be a priori). I can think of 3 colleagues (out of my team with capacity for ~9) that have left emergency medicine altogether, and 5 more that are trying to cut back to part time, in large part because the day-to-day has changed so dramatically over the last 3 years. Part of the collapse is when the boots on the ground decide "nope, this isn't what I signed up for" and find something else to do.