It is no surprise that burnout is surging along with this latest pandemic wave. Health care organizations feel these pressures and respond by focusing on the individual, which threatens to blame the canary for the toxic air in the mine. We must move beyond individual responses, beyond resilience and grit, beyond self-care, to recenter our health care system around the health and well-being of our patients while grounding our practice within the collective thriving of the communities in which we live and work.

I arrived in New Zealand in 2022, fresh from the trauma and heartbreak of caring for patients through the American Covid nightmare. The wounds on my soul and conscience were still raw, but, more than healing, I came in search of hope.

My early days in New Zealand brought exactly the learning and growth and reinvigoration I had hoped for.

But as I grew clinically, the cracks became more obvious.