Physician Burnout: We Can Change The Game from Exhausting & Stressful to Fulfilling & Blissful

Brook Cheng

January 4, 2026

Physician burnout remains a crisis. According to Google AI overview, such burnout stems from systemic issues like overwhelming administrative burdens, moral distress from being unable to provide ideal care, and workload pressures due to staff shortages, leading to emotional exhaustion, decreased fulfillment, and thoughts of leaving the profession (Google AI overview, 2025).

Incapability of Providing Ideal Care

As a non-physician healthcare practitioner standing outside the circle on the basis of extensive literature reading, I argue that being unable to provide ideal care is the No 1 reason leading to physician or clinician burnout.

But why being unable to provide ideal care? The answer is that modern medicine is filled with uncertainty. “Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability”, mused William Osler. According to an Editorial of The Lancet (2010), uncertainty is inherent in modern medicine, as it is in all aspects of complex behaviour in which outcomes are non-linear.

For a deeper exploration of why modern healthcare feels broken, see: 👉 The End of Modern Medicine: Cries & Nostalgia for Its Golden Past https://www.nmmclinical.com/blog/7b1fc817-b60b-4cb3-90a3-cf819e581132

Critical Shortage of Effectiveness

While uncertainty prevails in modern medicine, there is one thing that is no doubt very certain - a critical shortage of effectiveness.

In 2013, the British Medical Journal posted on their website (Clinical Evidence) the results of an analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) focusing on harms and benefits of 3,000 medical treatments (Frakt A, 2013). The analysis found that merely 11% of 3000 treatments have evidence-proved benefits with certainty. The benefits and harms of half of the 3000 treatments are unknown. The remaining 39% are clinically no more beneficial or less harmful compared with placebo.

"Medicine's treatments for diseases are seldom effective, and that they are often more dangerous than the diseases they're designed to treat." Says Robert Mendelsohn, MD, in his Confession of a Medical Heretic (1979).

"Medicine has yet to come up with a more useful drug than morphine; without it, few would have the heart to practise the profession." Argued Seamus O'Mahony, MD, in his book Can Medicine Be Cured? (2019).

For a deeper look at why clinicians struggle to see these systemic issues clearly, read: 👉 Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t? Two Mindsets & Their Meaning to Healthcare Professionals https://www.nmmclinical.com/blog/234b2a13-846e-488e-9f98-d19ff0087ad9

From Burnout to Fulfillment: Is A Game Change Possible?

The answer is YES, if a physician starts to practise a magic bullet medicine.

Neijing acupuncture, although extremely few in this 21st century world know about it, is a magic bullet medicine and also an ideal medicine. In sharp contrast to modern medicine, in Neijing acupuncture, there is, if not none, very little uncertainty. In Neijing acupuncture, the therapeutic intervention for any illness must start to take effect in 3 seconds as perceived by the patient.

This is simply like a falling apple from an apple tree that must move straight downward and hit the ground in 3 seconds with 99.99% certainty (there is 0.01% possibility that the falling apple moved horizontally when a flying caw knocked into the falling apple).

So, in Neijing acupuncture, all clinicians (doctors or therapists) can become a magician or an angel in patients' eyes. As a result, all clinicians can achieve a fulfilling and blissful life. Gone forever the burnout!

To understand how modern medicine became so uncertain, see: 👉 In Medicine, Facts or Scientific Evidences Can’t Change Clinicians’ Minds https://www.nmmclinical.com/blog/6e7a852a-732e-41df-a016-215df746f96a

What a Clinician Can Do for the Patient in Neijing Acupuncture

No Instant Improvement? Patients Must Be Treated Free

In Neijing acupuncture, a clinician can tell the patient:

“If you do not feel improvement in 3 seconds, I will treat you free of charge until you do.”

This is the essence of Ideal Medicine. 👉 First Duty of Physicians & An Ideal Medicine: The Sick Medicine Can Be Cured https://www.nmmclinical.com/blog/cd476890-87f1-4895-8a33-ab674afecbf6

screenshot from greennatureacupuncture.com

No Side Effects, Guaranteed

In Neijing acupuncture, the tiny needles (0.16 -0.18 mm in diameter) are inserted only on distal limbs. The risk from side effects can be viewed as none.

Perceivable Improvement in 3 Seconds, Guaranteed

A clinician armed with Neijing acupuncture can confidently advised the patient:

"You will feel instant improvement (less abnormal sensation) with 3 seconds, no matter where your pain or abnormal sensation is located: from head to heels, stomach to colons, liver to kidneys, chest to pelvis, lung to ovaries, fingers to toes, shoulders to buttocks, neck to tailbone...

"Not just musculoskeletal conditions, you will also feel instant sensational relief for your gastric reflux, gall stones, fatty liver, kidney stone, constipation, menstruation issues, sinusitis, asthma, fibroids, lymphatic lumps, ovary cysts, uterine fibroid... There is always a way to make you feel instant relief related to your specific condition.

"Depending on the initial situation, all these conditions could thus be naturally cured or alleviated at 95% certainty within 1 - 6 months of ongoing treatment."

"Your body started healing now by itself. The needle in my hand did nothing but sending a signal to your brain which could in turn flip on a switch in your body ..."

Bodily Privacy Respect Guaranteed

As mentioned earlier, in Neijing acupuncture, the needles are inserted only on distal limbs. The body trunk will never be needled. This is not because there is no therapeutically effective regions on the body trunk for a specific condition, but because it is utterly unnecessary. A clinician has enough far more effective regions available on just the limbs.

For each single specific condition, for example, a cyst 2mm x 4mm in size in left side ovary, or a painful spot 2cm x 3cm in size between right side transverse processes of C2-C3, .... you have at least over 10 body regions on the limbs where you can find spots which, when poked by a needle, could produced an instant relief of the sensation (pain or any weird feeling) related to the issue perceivable to the patient. Forget the body trunk, let's make the patient comfortable as much as possible.

As a patient, their number one privacy concern is how a clinician treat a condition which is located at private body parts: pelvic floor, pubic area, anal area etc. In Neijing acupuncture, all these private conditions can be treated by needling the limbs with magical effectiveness - patients will feel improvement instantly in 3 seconds!

So a clinician practicing Neijing acupuncture can advise patients: "You will comfortably watch how I treat you. During the treatment, you just lie face up, but never face down, on the treatment table, fully dressed with short sleeves and shorts. You can keep asking me questions from your curiosity while watching me to insert needles."

Blissful Clinicians, A Fulfilling Life Guaranteed

In Neijing acupuncture, clinicians will be engulfed by big smiles everyday, making their life unbelievably blissful and fulfilling, all clinicians will say goodbye forever to exhausting or frustrating!

In modern medicine, everywhere are filled with uncertainty with poor effectiveness of treatments (as an example, read this: A Professional's Life in Physiotherapy: Fulfilling or Exhausting. It Depends on Our Ability to Beat Uncertainties).

In Neijing acupuncture, the instant start of healing is as certain as you can expect sunrise in every morning.

In Neijing acupuncture, a clinician will never ask patients for testimonials. You are a magician, you are an angel, you are so confident, you will never want to put any burden or pressure on your patients (read Don't Solicit Testimonials Please!).

In short, in Neijing acupuncture, every doctor or therapist can become a magician in patients' eyes (read this). Everyday you see happy patients, patients see you as a saint. No one fails!

For a powerful contrast with the exhausting life of conventional clinicians, see: 👉 The End of Modern Medicine: Cries & Nostalgia for Its Golden Past https://www.nmmclinical.com/blog/7b1fc817-b60b-4cb3-90a3-cf819e581132

For how mindset shapes fulfillment, see: 👉 Echo Chambers, Delusions & Critical Thinkers https://www.nmmclinical.com/blog/6623bd01-b3fc-44fc-8cff-7fb075599384

Neijing Acupuncture - An Ideal Medicine

In Neijing acupuncture:

No medication (oral or external) needed.

Surgery will be kept in minimum (only for acute physical trauma)

Truly promote self-healing.

Magic bullet efficacy (fast effect. no or little uncertainty)

Zero treatment burden (no bothersome patient compliance required except tolerating a pinch sensation from a tiny needle).

Extremely convenient for both clinicians & patients.

Intensely personal.

Highly patient-centered.

My Humble Wish

My two Newsletters – Pursuing An Ideal Medicine and Truth of Acupuncture Science – is a report of my findings of a "hidden" magic bullet medicine and a record of my experience in practising this medicine.

My humble wish is that at least a small portion of doctors and therapists in the world who feel exhausted with the status quo medicine could become surrounded by their patients' smiles and viewed as magicians, saints or angels. Gone forever the burnout, both for clinicians and patients.

References

Editorial, Uncertainty in medicine. The Lancet: Volume 375, Issue 9727 p1666. May 15, 2010

Frakt A, Half of medical treatments of unknown effectiveness. January 16, 2013 https://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/half-of-medical-treatments-of-unknown-effectiveness/

Mendelsohn R., Confession of a Medical Heretic, 1979

Meldolesi E et al, Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability (Sir W. Osler). Radiother Oncol. 2015 Jan;114(1):132-4. doi: 10.1016/j.radonc.2014.12.013. Epub 2015 Jan 20. PMID: 25616538.Neijing Acupuncture for Curing:

O’Mahony Seamus, Can Medicine Be Cured? The Corruption Of A Profession. Head of Zeus. ,2019.

Stegenga Jacob, Medical Nihilism. 15 March 2018, Oxford University Press

Tetlok PE, Doctors without Science. 2015. https://thewalrus.ca/doctors-without-science/