The Unvarnished Truth: In Defense of Those Who Save Us
By: Drew Duffy, MD, MHA, FACHE, Founder & Managing Director, ClearPath Compliance
Note from Our Founder
This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a personal truth from someone who’s been in the trenches and watched too many good people break under the weight of a broken system. If you’re in healthcare, this is for you.
A raw take on why healthcare workers deserve our fierce protection, not our judgment
Let me tell you something that might make you uncomfortable:
Your nurse practitioner crying in her car after a 14-hour shift isn't weakness.
Your ER doctor snapping at a patient asking for antibiotics for their viral infection isn't unprofessionalism.
Your ICU nurse forgetting to smile while she's trying to keep someone's grandmother alive isn't poor bedside manner.
It’s humanity stretched to its absolute breaking point.
And I’m done pretending it’s not.
The Brutal Math of Modern Healthcare
Here’s what your healthcare providers won’t tell you—because they’re too professional, too exhausted, or too afraid of losing their jobs:
They are drowning.
Not metaphorically. Not dramatically. Literally drowning in a system that demands they be superhuman while treating them as expendable.
Your average nurse today manages 6–8 patients per shift—double what research shows is safe. Your family doctor sees 25–30 patients a day, spending an average of 8 minutes with each person before moving to the next crisis. Your emergency physician makes life-or-death decisions every 20 minutes for 12 hours straight, often without a real break to eat, sleep, or process what they’ve just witnessed.
And then we wonder why they seem “burned out.”
The Invisible Violence of Healthcare
Every day, healthcare workers absorb violence—physical, emotional, and psychological—that would break most of us.
They’re punched by delirious patients, screamed at by grieving families, threatened by people demanding treatments that don’t exist or drugs they can’t prescribe.
They watch children die. They hold the hands of people taking their last breaths. They deliver news that shatters families. They make split-second decisions that determine whether someone’s spouse comes home for dinner.
And then they clock out, drive home, and try to be present for their own families, their own lives, their own crises.
When did we decide this was sustainable?
When did we collectively agree that the people saving our lives should sacrifice their own mental health, their relationships, their humanity on the altar of “patient care”?
The Gaslighting Has to Stop
The healthcare industry has perfected the art of gaslighting its own workforce.
Administrators making seven figures lecture nurses about “resilience” while refusing to hire adequate staff. Hospital executives preach “work-life balance” while mandating overtime. Medical schools teach “self-care” while normalizing 80-hour work weeks.
Meanwhile, patients and families—many genuinely suffering and afraid—take out their frustrations on the only people trying to help them.
Healthcare workers become punching bags for a broken system they didn’t create and can’t fix.
We’ve created a culture where admitting you’re struggling is seen as weakness, where asking for help is career suicide, where setting boundaries is labeled “not being a team player.”
This is insanity.
The Real Heroes Don’t Wear Capes
Your healthcare providers aren’t heroes because they’re superhuman.
They’re heroes because they’re completely, utterly, beautifully human—and they show up anyway.
They show up when their own parents are dying in another hospital across town.
They show up when their marriages are falling apart because they’re never home.
They show up when they’re sick themselves because there’s no one to cover their shift.
They show up when they’re broke because their student loans eat half their paycheck.
They show up when they’re afraid—of making a mistake, of getting sued, of catching something deadly, of not being enough for the person in front of them.
And they keep showing up.
What We Owe Them
We owe them more than applause. More than “thank you for your service” and yard signs.
We owe them:
Respect. Real respect. The kind that doesn’t evaporate the moment your wait time is longer than expected or your test results aren’t what you wanted to hear.
Patience. They’re not Amazon Prime. Healthcare isn’t a consumer experience. Sometimes healing takes time. Sometimes there are no quick fixes. Sometimes the answer is “we don’t know yet.”
Trust. They went to school for years to learn how to help you. They’re not conspiring against you. They’re not withholding the “good stuff.” They’re not in cahoots with Big Pharma. They’re just trying to practice evidence-based medicine in a world full of Google-educated patients and social media cure-alls.
Protection. From violence, from abuse, from impossible expectations. From administrators who see them as profit centers rather than people. From a society that demands perfection while providing inadequate resources.
The Truth About Healthcare Today
The truth is that healthcare workers are leaving in droves.
Not because they don’t care anymore—
But because they care too much to watch themselves become shells of who they used to be.
The truth is that many of your providers are functioning on fumes, held together by caffeine, duty, and the desperate hope that tomorrow might be a little easier.
The truth is that we’re facing a healthcare crisis not because we lack technology or knowledge—but because we’re systematically destroying the people who deliver care.
The truth is that every healthcare worker reading this has thought about quitting.
Probably this week. Possibly today.
A Call to Action (Not Just Gratitude)
Stop telling healthcare workers to “take care of themselves” while voting for politicians who gut healthcare funding.
Stop demanding they be available 24/7 while complaining about the cost of care.
Stop treating them like service workers when they’re trying to save lives.
Instead:
Advocate for better staffing ratios
Support healthcare workers’ right to unionize
Vote for people who understand that healthcare is infrastructure, not a luxury
Be kind to the humans caring for you—they’re doing their best in an impossible situation
Recognize that good healthcare requires investment, not just inspiration
The Bottom Line
Your healthcare providers aren’t broken. The system is broken.
They’re not weak for struggling. They’re human for feeling overwhelmed by an inhuman situation.
They deserve our fierce advocacy—not our judgment. Our protection—not our criticism. Our support—not our silence.
Because here’s the thing: We’re all going to need them someday.
And when that day comes, we’ll want them to still be there—not just physically present, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually intact enough to care for us with the compassion and skill we deserve.
The people who save our lives shouldn’t have to sacrifice their own to do it.
It’s time we started acting like we understand that.
If you’re a healthcare worker reading this:
You matter. Your struggles are valid. You’re not alone. And you deserve better than what you’re getting.
If you’re not in healthcare:
The next time you interact with someone who is, remember—they’re carrying more than you can see. Be gentle. Be patient. Be grateful—not just for what they do, but for who they are.
Because at the end of the day, they’re not just treating our bodies.
They’re holding space for our fear, our pain, our hope.
The least we can do is hold space for theirs.
Author’s Note
I want to say something that might ruffle a few feathers:
Healthcare leadership today is deeply inadequate.
Yes, many executives have MBAs from prestigious schools—but unless you’ve actually worked in healthcare, you have no idea what it takes to care for patients. These graduates may know how to read spreadsheets, but they don’t know disease progression. They don’t know what best practices look like in the middle of a night shift with two codes and no backup. They see numbers—not people.
It used to be different. Hospital administrators were often physicians—people who went back to school because they wanted to improve the system from within. I know, because I was one of them.
I left clinical practice in the early 2000s. Not because I stopped caring, but because I saw what was coming. The system was already breaking, and I couldn’t unsee it. So I made it my mission to stand behind those who keep showing up—to help the helpers.
This piece comes from that place. A place of truth, of grief, and of deep respect.
Healthcare workers deserve leaders who understand them. Until then, they’ll have people like me—fighting for them, fiercely and unapologetically.
