Recently, a friend of mine approached me and asked if I would help her with her MCAT studying. She would be a non-traditional med school applicant after taking a few years post pre-med to do great and wonderful things, including organizing cancer research at a local academic centre. Because of a few gap years, she felt the need to ACE this standardized test to prove she still has the academic chops to both herself and prospective medical schools. Immediately, I froze. Seeing that I've just been pulling myself out of burnout and in the process have heard from so many of my colleagues sharing their own burnout stories with me, I looked at her and thought: Do I have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect you from yourself and your idealism?
