Is medicine still a calling? Physicians weigh purpose against burnout

At the Medical Group Management Association Leaders Conference 2025 last fall in Orlando, Florida, an expert panel, moderated by Shane Jackson, MBA, president of Jackson Healthcare, wrestled with a deceptively simple question: Is medicine still a calling? The question was first posed in a joint report published by the two organizations earlier in 2026.

The panel was comprised of Tony Stajduhar, then-president of Jackson Physician Search and now a senior adviser for Jackson Healthcare; Miechia A. Esco, M.D., Ph.D., MBA, RPVI, FACS, a board-certified locum tenens vascular surgeon and chief medical resource adviser at LocumTenens.com; and Chris Franklin, president of LocumTenens.com.

Ultimately, the panel agreed that medicine is still a calling, but one that requires intentional support from organizations.

Leaders can help clinicians reconnect to purpose through hiring practices, onboarding, honest communication, mentorship and culture that values people as much as productivity.

As Esco put it: “There’s no winning in medicine. It’s an infinite process, so you have to really reframe what success is — and it’s beyond the metrics.”