Ishwaria Subbiah, Faculty Member, Division of Cancer Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“”The stakes are too high for superficial experts with borrowed slides.”
Last week, I had the privilege of facilitating a session on occupational wellbeing for approximately 100 oncologists and multidisciplinary cancer care professionals. Our focus: Personal Processing of Everyday Stressors from Clinical Work. A week later, I’m still thinking about the stories they shared—that sparked several thoughts worth sharing here.
The Perfect Storm: Oncology’s High-Stakes Environment
The statistics are sobering: 59% of US oncologists meet burnout criteria (up from 45% in 2013), while European rates reach 70%, including 71% of oncologists under 40, according to studies from ASCO and ESMO. In a recent Medscape study, oncology ranks among medicine’s most stressful specialties. Yet oncology professionals rarely receive training in the self-protective strategies necessary to manage persistent exposure to high-intensity work.
Taking Action—But Doing It Right
Recovery, adaptation, and reconfiguration aren’t just buzzwords or abstract concepts—they’re essential skills for career sustainability and longevity. When we equip clinical teams with proven, practical tools to process their daily experiences, we help them reclaim agency, shifting control from burnout drivers, and transform the workplace experience from one of gradual depletion to one of purpose and satisfaction.
What I’ve described above—that’s Healthcare Professional Wellbeing—a specialized field fundamentally different from traditional HR activities in both knowledge base and training requirements, requiring dedicated leaders with appropriate training and specific expertise.
Primum Non Nocere: Expertise Required, No Exceptions
The stories from my session shared three glaring elements: (1) organizations often made fundamentally flawed assumptions about occupational wellbeing, which reflected in their wellbeing program leadership and programming itself; (2) Employees quickly recognized this institutional disconnect between the actual drivers of burnout and the somewhat superficial wellbeing initiatives, which in turn damaged organizational credibility for existing and future programs, and (3) such wellbeing programs often had leaders whose expertise lay elsewhere, in areas other than healthcare occupational wellbeing.
For organizations and leaders exploring burnout interventions, one message is paramount:
“Healthcare Professional Wellbeing is not a casual assignment, a secondary responsibility, a vanity-driven career pivot, a low-risk change to delay retirement, or an exit strategy from clinical practice.”
Institutions assume significant risk with wellbeing programs carelessly assembled without this foundational understanding of the field. Such programs inevitably erode stakeholder credibility, signal organizational drift, among other consequences—all of which constitute harm.
What High-Performing Organizations Do Differently
First, do no harm. Organizations with exemplary healthcare professional wellbeing programs share four key characteristics:
1. They invest in committed, knowledgeable, and energetic leaders specifically trained in healthcare occupational wellbeing.
2. They eliminate leadership barriers that undermine wellbeing efforts.
3. They provide wellbeing programs with genuine authority—not merely ’empowerment.’
4. They allocate the fundamental resources necessary for success.
When organizations follow these principles, the impact is transformational. The path forward is clear for concrete actions that enable our oncology teams not just to survive, but to thrive in their calling. The stakes are too high for superficial experts with borrowed slide decks.”
More Posts Featuring Ishwaria Subbiah.