Forty years ago, Arlie Russell Hochschild documented emotional labour. The exhausting work of keeping a smile on the frontline whether you feel like it or not.

Emotional labour is very different from a task-based, results-focussed, measured output approach to getting jobs done.

But roles aren’t one or the other. Healthcare used to be very much emotional labour, and that was hard enough. But now, we’ve layered in the measured output approach on top, but we haven’t allowed for more time.

And two out of three doctors are in burnout.

Healthcare requires a high degree of confidence before trying something new. The double-blind randomised bar seems to have been applied to almost everything, even when that degree of confidence isn’t required.

AI and mechanisation offer the chance to remove many of the ‘tasks’ that are eating up time.

My hope is that healthcare can lean into appropriately using it to support doctors because the emotional labour will always continue, and right now, that’s too hard.