Five Days to Friday: Burnout in Medicine
FIVE DAYS TO FRIDAY is a performance-based workshop designed to create structured space for examining and strengthening the culture of medicine. Through theater and movement, the program invites health care professionals and leaders to engage directly with the systemic and relational forces that shape clinical work — and to identify practical strategies for building healthier, more sustainable environments.
The play offers an intimate portrait of how cumulative clinical demands, productivity pressures, regulatory oversight, staffing constraints, and institutional expectations converge over the course of a single week. A prominent general surgeon and chief resident navigate patient care, hierarchy, leadership responsibility, and performance metrics, while also managing the strain these pressures place on their personal lives and closest relationships.
Rather than framing burnout as an individual shortcoming, the production examines how workload intensity, decision fatigue, moral distress, documentation burden, and cultural norms accumulate over time. It also brings into focus the spillover into home life — fractured communication, emotional depletion, and the quiet erosion of connection that can accompany sustained professional strain.
Following the 45-minute performance, a facilitated dialogue creates space for participants to translate insight into action, with a focus on concrete strategies and system-aware solutions.
Health care professionals leave with practical strategies for:
- Recognizing early signs of burnout, compassion fatigue, and psychological strain
- Addressing hierarchical barriers that inhibit communication and support
- Supporting residents and trainees navigating performance pressure
- Managing conflict and tension within interdisciplinary teams
- Creating psychologically safer spaces in clinical settings
- Interrupting normalization of unhealthy work expectations
- Building sustainable cultures of medicine without compromising standards of care
Available in-person and Zoom.