Karachi: More than 80 percent of Pakistani doctors are now physically and mentally exhausted, many are dying younger than the general population from sudden cardiac arrests, and barely one in ten remains physically active, senior cardiologists and mental health experts warned at a national medical forum, saying extreme workload, chronic stress and burnout have turned healers into some of the country’s most vulnerable patients.
They said the crisis has become so severe that over 60 percent of doctors and surgeons no longer want their children to enter the profession, not because medicine lacks dignity but because the system has become physically punishing and emotionally damaging.
The warnings were issued at Mediverse Life in a Metro, a nationwide scientific symposium organised by Hudson Pharma under its Mediverse academic initiative. The Karachi session, held at Zaver Hall at the Pearl Continental Hotel, focused on how urban life, long working hours, stress, pollution and sedentary routines are accelerating heart disease, obesity, depression and anxiety among healthcare professionals.
Consultant interventional cardiologist and internal medicine specialist Dr Mohammad Rehan Omar Siddiqui told participants that doctors had become “the most neglected patients in the healthcare system”, driven by a culture of self diagnosis, self prescribing and working through illness.
“Nearly 80 percent of doctors are already exhausted. Many are overweight, many are hypertensive, yet they continue to advise patients to exercise and live healthy lives,” he said. “Chronic stress and physical inactivity are now directly linked to early heart attacks, diabetes and sudden cardiac deaths among physicians.”
Dr Siddiqui said international health bodies recommend at least 180 minutes of physical activity per week, but even at a medical conference, fewer than one in ten doctors had exercised that day. “We are losing brilliant neurologists, ophthalmologists and surgeons in their forties and fifties. We have normalised burnout, and it is killing us,” he said.
He added that most doctors no longer wanted their children to follow them into medicine because the profession had become incompatible with a healthy family life. “Medicine is still noble, but the system has become cruel to those who work in it,” he said.
Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Dr Kulsoom Haider said the mind body connection was at the centre of the crisis, with prolonged emotional stress silently damaging the heart and other organs.
“Fear, grief and constant pressure overload the nervous system and can even trigger conditions like broken heart syndrome,” she said. “What the mind cannot process, the body stores, and it appears as chest tightness, fatigue, gut problems and eventually heart disease.”
She said depression and anxiety were now among the most common global illnesses and often first present as physical complaints rather than emotional ones. Simple practices such as controlled breathing, mindfulness, gratitude and awareness of bodily sensations, she said, could help regulate the nervous system and protect both mental and cardiac health.
During the panel discussion, Dr Tanveer and Dr Afzal Lodhi spoke about the culture of denial within the medical profession. Dr Tanveer said he had encouraged his children to choose healthier lives rather than medical careers, stressing the importance of physical activity, cycling and limiting screen time. “We believe nothing will happen to us. That false sense of invincibility is dangerous,” he said.
In her closing remarks, Samreen Hashmi Qudwai, Vice President Commercial Operations at Hudson Pharma, said doctors were more important than any product or brand and that Mediverse was created to remind physicians that their own health was central to the future of healthcare.
“If our doctors continue to burn out and neglect themselves, the entire system becomes unsustainable,” she said.
Experts agreed that unless burnout, emotional exhaustion and self neglect among doctors are urgently addressed through mental health support, realistic workloads and cultural change, Pakistan risks losing its healers far too early, with serious consequences for patient care and the country’s already fragile health system.
Ends