“Burnout is an over-used word in medicine; we don’t even know what it means anymore.”
Dr. Aldo Carmona said this in response to a question I asked him about the challenge of rampant burnout in modern healthcare.
He continued:
“I’d be inclined to put the problem this way: How are we going to reconnect health professionals to the reason they do what they do? How are we going to help them find the joy in healing?”
Dr. Carmona is the Senior Vice President of Clinical Integration at St. Luke’s University Health Network in Pennsylvania, where he also serves as Chief Medical Officer. He oversees 15 hospitals and more than 23,000 employees across a network spanning eight counties and two states.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing this remarkable physician whose executive leadership helped St. Luke’s achieve #1 in USA Today’s ranking of national health systems.
For Dr. Carmona, strengthening modern healthcare—and beating back burnout—boils down to one thing:
Reconnecting healers with purpose.
Purpose, he explained, is the impact you want to make with the gifts, values, talents, learning, and skills you carry. When you know in your bones who you are and what you’re equipped and inspired to contribute, you are living a purpose-driven life.
But lately, he says, purpose has been under attack.
“Purpose has been pummeled lately,” he told me.
When I asked why, he identified three major contributors.
The Three “Purpose Pummelers”
1. The Hero-to-Villain Phenomenon
“During Covid,” he said, “doctors and nurses were lauded as national heroes. But that switch has been flipped.”
There has been a societal reset since the pandemic, and many health professionals now experience hostility rather than admiration. Physicians and nurses are yelled at—and sometimes even physically threatened—by frustrated patients.
“Incivility abounds,” he said. “That really wears on a person.”
2. The Career Impatience Phenomenon
“Many of our younger staff feel perpetually agitated and discontent regarding their jobs,” Carmona said.
They’re unsure what they want or where they’re going. It’s what G.K. Chesterton once described as “quiet desperation”—a restless sense that career fulfillment is always somewhere out in the future.
But purpose requires a vision and a destination. Without that clarity, meaning becomes difficult to sustain.
3. The ‘Noise’ Phenomenon
Then there’s what Carmona simply calls the noise.
“It’s the challenge of staying tethered to the joy of healing when you’re perpetually accosted by a million little tasks,” he said.
Insurance claims. Scheduling changes. Endless EHR documentation. Bureaucratic frustrations.
“The noise… it’s endless,” he sighed.
The Culture that Changes Everything
What struck me most during my conversation with Dr. Carmona was that even while describing these challenges—the hostility, the restlessness, the endless noise—he radiated optimism and resilience.
So I asked him directly:
“Dr. Carmona, you aren’t burned out. And your staff aren’t either—St. Luke’s has some of the highest employee engagement and satisfaction ratings in the country. What’s your secret?”
His answer was immediate.
“Easy,” he said. “We’ve built a purpose-driven culture centered on compassion—and it comes from the very top. Culture eats strategy for lunch.”
To illustrate what that culture looks like in practice, Carmona shared a story from the early days of the Covid crisis.
When the pandemic hit, St. Luke’s President and CEO Richard A. Anderson gathered his fifteen senior leaders and informed them that they would all be taking significant pay cuts so that no employees would lose their jobs—especially those earning under $75,000.
As Carmona recalled the moment, his voice caught with emotion.
During the meeting, Anderson played a scene from the film Cinderella Man in which a father during the Great Depression pretends he is too full to eat so his children can have the last of the family’s food.
The message was unmistakable: those at the top would sacrifice to take care of those in their charge.
A competing hospital system responded to Covid with massive layoffs. Five years later, that system continues to struggle—particularly with employee retention.
St. Luke’s, by contrast, is thriving financially and reports some of the highest retention, satisfaction, and engagement scores in the country.
Purpose pays. Compassion delivers.
“We’ve built a culture centered on people, relationships, and compassion,” Carmona told me.
He often reminds his staff that one of the most healing things a clinician can do is surprisingly simple: sit down with a patient and ask, “What are you most worried about today?”
Then stop talking.
And listen.
“At St. Luke’s,” he said, “we try to stay focused on the basics: Who is this person in front of me? What are they going through? And how can I help them?”
Dr. Aldo Carmona is in his sixties, and he says he feels just as joyful about the healing profession today as he did when he was twenty-five.
Why?
Because he and his colleagues are crystal clear about their purpose: compassionate care.
“All the rest,” he said with a smile, “is noise.”
