Inside the Bullying Pandemic in Medicine: What Physicians Learned When We Finally Spoke Openly
There is a pandemic spreading through medicine that few acknowledge and even fewer feel safe naming. It doesn’t travel through droplets or surfaces — it spreads through silence, hierarchy, and the unspoken expectation that physicians must endure suffering as part of our training. For years, many of us swallowed our pain, believing composure was the cost of competence.
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Then came the Bullying in Medicine Summit — a gathering of people ready to speak openly. What unfolded wasn’t just storytelling. It felt like the first time many of us have gathered to dissect, understand, and diagnose this pandemic with the same rigor we bring to any disease that harms humanity.
Perfectionism: The First Weakness in the System
Dr. Amna Shabbir opened with the three types of perfectionism — self-oriented, other-oriented, socially prescribed — and how each leaves us vulnerable to bullying. Her insight that medicine equates “composure with competence” hit a nerve. How many times have we stayed silent because showing vulnerability felt like failure?
Her alternative — excellentism — offers a way to strive without the self-erasure that perfection promotes.
Dr. Gloria Esoimeme shared her own three-part framework of self-preservation:
• Know yourself
• Know your values
• Find your tribe
Dr. Shabbir continues this work through her podcast Success Reimagined, where she helps physicians rethink achievement without burnout. Dr. Esoimeme’s coaching further supports physicians in advocating for their worth, especially in contract negotiations.
Ubuntu: The Connection We Forgot
Dr. Nondumiso Makhunga-Stevenson brought everything together through the lens of Ubuntu — I am because you are — an African principle of interconnectedness as a means of thriving. Bullying thrives where connection dies. Ubuntu reminds us that the health of medicine depends on the health of the relationships inside it.
The Neurobiology of Harm
Dr. Jen Fraser revealed the neurological side of this pandemic. MRI studies show the bullied brain with enlarged threat centers, shrinking regulatory regions, and the imprint of chronic cortisol. Her comparison between bullying today and smoking in hospitals decades ago was unforgettable.
Harm can feel “normal” until science exposes it.
Her new book The Gaslit Brain and her educational work deepen this scientific lens on how toxic systems reshape the nervous system.
The Bully’s Dopamine Loop
Dr. Ravi Yarid expanded on the physiology underlying this harm. Through the osteopathic emotional lens, he explained the bully-needy dynamic and how bullying triggers dopamine release, reinforcing the behavior like an addictive cycle. His framework — transforming fear into courage, anger into passion, sadness into empathy, disgust into faith — offered a roadmap for emotional balance across the system.
Compassionate Education as Prevention
Dr. Aleobe Eruemulor shared her experience as an IMG resident bullied without support. Her upcoming Compassionate Educator course aims to teach attendings how to train without traumatizing — a crucial intervention if we want future doctors learning in safety, not fear.
Mapping the Pandemic: Dr. Dominic Corrigan
Dr. Dominic Corrigan presented the epidemiology we have long needed. Bullying transgresses borders, go underreported, are strongly linked to physician suicide, and disproportionately affects women. He also named a truth we rarely acknowledge: many physicians turn to substances to cope with chronic humiliation, fear, and isolation.
His slides confirmed what many of us lived — bullying behaves like a true public-health pandemic.
Through Physicians Anonymous, he also supports doctors seeking safe spaces to heal from burnout, bullying, or substance use.
When the Pandemic Reaches the Patient
Kim Downey delivered the emotional core of the summit. Losing her radiologist to suicide during her cancer treatment forced her into physician advocacy. When physicians suffer, patients suffer. Bullying radiates outward.
Through Stand Up (for) Doctors, she continues turning that pain into spaces where physicians can heal together.
Case Reports of Systemic Harm
Dr. Raji Akileh showed how his hardships fueled his mission to build a more humane, innovative medical education system.
Dr. Gabrielle Horne demonstrated what it looks like to confront institutional injustice head-on — and win. Her victory proves that silence is not the only path.
Dr. Raffia Qutab shared her painful experiences of being bullied and the devastating loss of an IMG resident who died waiting for a liver transplant because fear kept her from seeking care. That tragedy transformed her into a national advocate for IMG wellbeing.
My Epiphany: Silence Is the Bully’s Oxygen
During the summit, I realized how deeply this issue lives in our bodies. I shared the strategies I wish I had known — documenting everything, never meeting a bully alone, building allies early, demanding SMART goals, engaging neutral evaluators — but beneath it all was a deeper truth:
We must stop abandoning ourselves to protect systems that refuse to protect us.
And Then It Became Clear
Somewhere in the middle of these stories — the science, the data, the vulnerability, the relived trauma — I had an unmistakable epiphany:
Bullying picked the wrong profession.
It targeted resilient people trained to recognize patterns, diagnose disease, understand pathology, design treatments, and prevent recurrence. And now we are doing exactly that.
We are diagnosing this pandemic. We are treating the wounds. We are building the inoculation — through community, science, advocacy, education, emotional balance, Ubuntu, and courage.
This movement has begun. And to everyone reading — physician, trainee, educator, patient, ally — we need you. Pay attention. Speak up. Participate.
Pandemics end only when enough people refuse to let them spread.
Next gathering: April 10–11, 2026 (Friday & Saturday).
More About Dr Sarah Nasir, DO
Founder of Transcendant You and Zenara Care, Dr. Sarah Nasir is a force of purpose. She is a dual board-certified physician, visionary multipreneur, and international speaker. Through Transcendant You, she helps physicians become Transcendants—transcending limits, connecting within, harnessing purpose, and living lives of design across all six dimensions. Through Zenara Care, she provides compassionate, confidential, and comprehensive telemedicine for total recovery.
Follow the Complete List of Physicians and Healthcare Leaders Mentioned In This Article
Dr. Amna Shabbir and her podcast Success Reimagined
Dr. Gloria Esoimeme and her coaching business to support physicians in advocating for their worth
Dr Nondumiso Makhunga-Stevenson
Dr. Jen Fraser and her new book The Gaslit Brain
Dr. Aleobe Eruemulor and her upcoming Compassionate Educator course
Dr. Dominic Corrigan and his organization Physicians Anonymous
Kim Downey and her organization Stand Up (for) Doctors
Dr. Raji Akileh
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On/Offcall is the weekly dose of information and inspiration that every physician needs.
Dr. Sarah Nasir is a force of purpose — a dual board-certified physician in Family and Addiction Medicine, international motivational speaker, certified life & business coach, and visionary multipreneur. A modern Muslim mother raising the next generation like a divine investment, she melds science and soul to unleash healing, spark transformation, and ignite legacies that transcend time, space, and lifetimes. Whether she’s helping spiritual minds discover the divine in the material world or guiding high-potential founders to birth their brain children and build lives that matter, her work fuels purpose, not just productivity.