Are You Willing to Stop Judging Yourself (and Your Colleagues) in Medicine?

Judgment is everywhere in medicine. We judge our patients. We judge our colleagues.

Most of all, we judge ourselves.

In medicine, we’re trained to believe judgment is the path to excellence.

In reality, it leads to shame, stress, and burnout.

The culture of judgment is embedded in our medical training and systems.

It manifests in our thoughts, language, evaluations—even in how we provide feedback or label patients.

Judgment doesn’t create better care. It drains our energy, narrows our vision, and keeps us stuck in imposter syndrome.

What’s the alternative?

Mindfulness and compassion.

Something called Maitri—a Sanskrit word that means unconditional friendliness toward ourselves and others. (Thank you, Pooja, for teaching me this!)

Instead of judging, we can:

• Notice our thoughts with benevolent kindness.

• Pause and choose our response.

• Shift to curiosity.

• Speak to ourselves the way we’d speak to someone else

Imagine how things in medicine would feel differently if peer review and M&M focused on growth, not blame. If feedback inspired possibility, rather than shame. If we were taught to practice medicine with curiosity and compassion about undesired outcomes rather than fear and self-criticism.

We would have a lot less burnout.