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Physicians often save patients’ lives — a profound accomplishment as far as job achievements go. Yet, many doctors find that they rarely receive recognition for their “wins” — mostly hearing negative feedback at work or listening to talk about complications, lawsuits and clinical errors.
In fact, in a Sermo poll, 16% of physicians said that their workplace never celebrates successes, and 14% said they move immediately to the next task without pausing to acknowledge a clinical win.
Those who do celebrate achievements often keep it to themselves. When Sermo polled members on their initial response to professional wins, the most common answer (35%) was a quiet moment of reflection. “In my experience, the ‘wins’ in healthcare are often small and quiet,” one pediatric neurology specialist writes. “…The system often pushes us to move immediately to the next task, but briefly acknowledging these moments can reconnect us with the meaning of our work.”
Reduced feelings of personal accomplishment are a core component of burnout, so celebrating your wins, whether internally or with peers, may help reinforce a sense of professional fulfillment.
Physicians on Sermo are reflecting on how they can celebrate their wins more often. Join the discussion to be a part of the movement.
The problem with how medicine teaches resilience
Many physicians — including 82% of polled Sermo members — feel that the culture of medicine makes self-compassion difficult. 98% of the respondents said they think self-compassion is very important for doctors to practice, and 76% said they recommend self-compassion to their patients. Yet only 19% practice it themselves all of the time.
The culture of medicine may contribute to this disconnect. Physicians face unhealthy norms, including working late, deprioritized self-care and shaming around mistakes or near-mistakes, contributing to a culture of perfectionism and self-criticism, according to the authors of a 2023 study.
“Being tough and neglecting ourselves was forced in residency,” writes one emergency medicine physician on Sermo. “It often follows us like our shadow throughout life. No one takes time out to teach medical students or residents about self-care.” An internist on Sermo considers “a system that treats healthcare workers as disposable and subjects them to inhumane hours and expectations” to be “the real cause of burnout.”
When you’re trained in this environment, you can become accustomed to identifying mistakes and opportunities for improvement, so it may feel unnatural to celebrate routine successes. This could contribute to a negativity bias, where adverse events and near misses occupy far more mental space than the hundreds of positive outcomes that occur quietly in the background.
Over time, this can distort how you evaluate your own performance. A single complaint may linger in your memory for weeks, while dozens of successful patient encounters pass without a second thought. Many positive outcomes are also invisible; patients recover, follow treatment plans or avoid complications without ever reporting back. As a result, you may underestimate the cumulative impact of your work.
Research confirms that systemic factors may make it difficult or impossible for physicians to resist burnout. The authors of another 2023 study concluded that early medical training seems to play a significant role in lowering trainees’ well-being, and that while medical schools are addressing the issue with resiliency training, that may not be enough. That said, it doesn’t hurt to take steps to foster resiliency as a physician. Conventional advice usually involves mindfulness exercises, yoga or setting boundaries. You can also deliberately recognize the clinical wins you accumulate.
What positive psychology says about recognizing professional wins
Research suggests that deliberate recognition of your accomplishments could help boost your well-being. Here’s why:
Self-compassion as the strongest resilience factor
When you extend grace to yourself, it may help you build resilience. One 2025 study in Scientific Reports comparing different resilience tools identified self-compassion as the most important factor in stress and mental health. It significantly outranked optimism, social support and other established coping strategies. Another study reports that self-compassion could have a protective effect against compassion fatigue, a form of emotional exhaustion associated with repeated exposure to patients’ suffering and secondary traumatic stress that some physicians experience.
The psychology of positive recognition
Positive psychology research finds that acknowledging your accomplishments can keep you motivated and protect you against occupational burnout and mental illness. Different approaches to coaching include identifying, visualizing and utilizing your strengths, or using a “4-D model” (discovery, dream, design, and destiny) to focus on strengths when strategizing as a team, according to the authors of one study. They also highlighted another framework, the “Three Good Things” exercise, which involves logging three good things that happened each day in a journal. The hope is that by consciously noting what goes right, you train your brain to perceive your professional environment more accurately.
Patient recognition as a resilience driver
While you can jot down your own wins, Sermo members confirm that external gratitude from patients can also improve your outlook. In a poll, 41% of physicians said that patient recognition significantly increased their motivation and job satisfaction. Additionally, 33% value acknowledgement from patients above all other forms of recognition, including praise from colleagues or supervisors (26%), written acknowledgment (15%), public recognition at events (12%) and tangible rewards (10%).
A thoracic/general surgeon shared a personal anecdote with the Sermo community: “I once received a postcard from Madrid from a patient taking a trip to Spain after surviving surgery for a ruptured aneurysm 3 years after her surgery thanking me for the opportunity to take that trip and I will never lose that postcard.”
How to build a wins-based resilience practice
These are evidence-based resilience strategies you can implement to foster a healthier mindset:
Start a clinical wins log
At the end of each shift or clinic day, take two minutes to write down one clinical win. Keep this log in a notes app, a dedicated journal or a single ongoing document.
Not every professional win has to involve a life-saving diagnosis or a complex procedure. Maybe you convinced a hesitant patient to complete a screening test, caught a potential medication interaction or helped a family understand a difficult diagnosis. It can be significant to teach a resident a valuable lesson or support a colleague during a challenging shift. Consider expanding your definition of success if you aren’t prone to recognizing everyday wins.
“I like to keep my patients’ wins notes in writing so I can save them and remember them,” a family medicine physician shares on Sermo. “It’s very nice to have something physical that reminds you how well you do your job. In my hospital, we usually hang the thank-you notes in the coffee room so that everyone can read them and feel proud as a team.”
One general practitioner and orthopedic specialist shared their mindful approach to processing their successes. “For me, the celebration happens in the sixty seconds of silence after the final stitch is placed,” they write. “While the team prepares the patient for recovery, I take a moment to look at the final X-ray on the monitor. I don’t just see titanium and bone; I see a grandmother who will walk again, or a young athlete who won’t lose their dream. That deep, intentional breath is my ritual.”
Share wins with your team deliberately
While respondents in the Sermo poll most commonly said they take a quiet moment to reflect, 34% of physicians noted that their first response to a win is to share it with a colleague. You can start your next team meeting with 60 seconds dedicated to “what went well this week.” Some research in adult populations has found that maintaining a 3:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions distinguishes high-performing teams from low-performing ones, a pattern that may also be relevant for clinical teams.
Positive patient outcomes are often the result of collaboration among physicians, nurses, medical assistants, residents and administrative staff. You can acknowledge your team’s wins to foster a more supportive workplace culture while reinforcing your shared purpose. Something as simple as thanking a colleague for catching a potential error or recognizing the contributions of support staff can help create a sense of collective accomplishment. In environments where burnout is common, teambuilding initiatives could help increase members’ sense of purpose and decrease turnover.
Reframe “no complaints” as a positive outcome
You might be used to viewing the absence of complaints or complications as a neutral baseline, rather than as evidence of highly competent care. In reality, every shift without an adverse event is the direct result of your training and clinical judgment. Reframe it in your mind as a positive, rather than neutral, outcome.
Practice self-compassion after setbacks
A Sermo poll found that only 19% of respondents practice self-compassion “all the time” in their professional lives, 51% do so sometimes, 23% occasionally and 4% never do. When asked how they balance celebrating wins with a busy schedule, only 12% said they make it a priority to schedule time to celebrate. Ideally you’ll take a cue from those who feel compassion all the time, even when you’ve experienced an inevitable setback.
An anesthesiologist and Sermo member reflected on the trap of perfectionism in medicine. “It can be helpful for professional performance, but can be very hard on the practitioner,” they write. “Perfection isn’t something that can actually be attained consistently with so many uncontrolled variables and the underlying heterogeneity of biological systems. Some degree of self-compassion is required for most of us to get through a career.”
Why peer communities matter for physician resilience
Researchers have found that social isolation and burnout are linked, and that structured mentorship programs can reduce feelings of isolation. The 2025 Scientific Reports study noted that social support is linked to resilience, with the authors concluding that it can complement (not replace) self-compassion.
Studies suggest that sharing your accomplishments with others — a process known as “capitalization” — can increase perceived wellbeing and self-esteem. However, it’s not a common practice among physicians, according to one internist and cardiologist on Sermo: “Most doctors live within their own worlds, so success or failure are often private events.”
Physicians who lack peer connection in their workplace can look to specialty societies or online communities. Sermo provides a space where physicians across the globe can share and recognize each other’s clinical wins.
Reconnect with the meaning of your practice
When you actively celebrate your accomplishments large and small, it can help you remain resilient. Research supports that self-compassion is one of the strongest resilience factors among physicians, and that the deliberate celebration of wins activates the intrinsic motivation required to sustain a long career. While physicians are often conditioned not to celebrate their accomplishments, it can be a helpful approach in avoiding burnout. Among Sermo members, patient recognition stands out as the most valued form of acknowledgment.
If you’d like an outlet where you can share your wins and cheer on your peers, you can join Sermo. Connect with more than 1 million verified physicians across 150 countries to share your clinical wins, discuss resilience strategies and find the peer support you need to thrive.
