Patients Lie. Or Do They?

What an HVAC Customer Taught Me About Burnout, Compassion, and Practicing Medicine

June 03, 2026

There is a phrase I remember hearing during training.

Patients lie.

I honestly don’t remember whether it was medical school or residency. At some point, though, it became part of the culture.

Patients lie.

Our job is to uncover the truth.

At the time, it seemed practical. Maybe even protective.

Then I became an attending.

And suddenly I wasn’t hearing the phrase as a trainee anymore.

I was living it.

“Nobody Told Me”

If you’ve practiced medicine long enough, you’ve experienced this.

You spend time counseling a patient.

You explain the diagnosis.

You review treatment options.

You answer questions.

You draw pictures.

You document everything.

Then they come back and say:

“Nobody explained this to me.”

Or my personal favorite:

“I never saw the doctor.”

Meanwhile you’re sitting there wondering if you’re losing your mind.

Because you know you were there.

You know you explained it.

You know you documented it.

When honesty and doing a good job matter deeply to you, those moments hit differently.

You start questioning yourself.

Did I forget?

Did I miss something?

Could I have explained it better?

It can be incredibly frustrating.

And over time, it can make you resentful.

The Kind of Burnout Nobody Talks About

We talk a lot about workload.

We talk about staffing shortages.

We talk about charting.

We talk about call.

But we don’t talk enough about the emotional exhaustion that comes from constantly feeling like your reality is being challenged.

It’s a specific flavor of burnout.

A weird kind of professional gaslighting.

You know what happened.

The documentation proves what happened.

And yet someone is insisting a completely different version of events occurred.

Day after day.

Year after year.

That takes a toll.

It Took Leaving the Office for Me to See It Differently

Here’s the uncomfortable truth.

I don’t know if I could have had this perspective while I was still in the thick of clinical practice.

Some of my biggest growth as a physician happened after I left the office.

Not after I left medicine.

After I left traditional practice.

Distance gave me perspective.

Perspective gave me compassion.

And compassion gave me something I desperately needed.

Relief.

Because I started realizing something important:

Most people are not trying to deceive us.

Most people are not waking up in the morning plotting against their physicians.

They’re distracted.

They’re overwhelmed.

They’re scared.

They’re exhausted.

Sometimes they genuinely don’t remember.

Sometimes they misunderstood.

Sometimes they heard only the part that felt important to them.

Sometimes they simply have too much going on.

Then My Husband Became the Physician

Recently, my husband experienced something that gave me immediate OBGYN flashbacks.

One of our HVAC customers called because his air conditioning wasn’t working.

There were elderly parents in the home.

He was caring for them.

He needed the system running.

My husband found two separate issues.

One issue was preventing the AC from turning on.

The second issue was affecting performance.

The customer specifically declined the performance work because he planned to use his home warranty.

My husband explained this multiple times.

The customer agreed.

The next day?

The customer called upset because the performance issue wasn’t fixed.

My husband was furious.

And honestly?

I understood exactly why.

Welcome to Medicine

As he vented, I had this strange realization.

I’ve had this conversation hundreds of times.

Just in a different setting.

The details were different.

The emotions were exactly the same.

He knew what he had said.

The customer remembered something completely different.

And suddenly I was the one reminding him:

Document.

That’s why we document.

That’s why medicine documents.

That’s why businesses record phone calls.

That’s why AI scribes are becoming so valuable.

Not because everyone is dishonest.

Because memory is messy.

The More Interesting Question

Over the years, I’ve stopped asking:

“Why do patients lie?”

And started asking:

“Why do people remember things differently?”

That’s a much more useful question.

Because once you stop assuming malicious intent, you create room for understanding.

Not because the other person deserves endless grace.

Because you do.

The belief that it’s always you versus them is exhausting.

It’s hard to sustain a career that way.

Eventually the resentment wins.

You quit.

You switch jobs.

You change specialties.

Or you stay and become increasingly unhappy.

Compassion Isn’t for Them

This is the part I wish someone had taught me earlier.

Compassion isn’t primarily for the patient.

It’s for you.

It’s a tool that protects your peace.

It allows you to acknowledge reality without carrying every interaction as a personal wound.

You can still have boundaries.

You can still document.

You can still advocate for yourself.

You can still be annoyed.

Lord knows I still get annoyed.

But you don’t have to carry the belief that everyone is intentionally trying to undermine you.

That belief is heavy.

And physician moms are already carrying enough.

I Believe You, Doc

Before we finish, I want to tell you something.

I believe you.

I know you explained it.

I know you drew the diagram.

I know you answered the questions.

I know you cared.

I know you documented it.

I know you’re trying your best.

There are plenty of people who don’t understand what physicians deal with every day.

I’m not one of them.

I see it.

I lived it.

And if this episode gives you nothing else, I hope it gives you that.

The reminder that you’re not crazy.

You’re not imagining it.

And maybe, just maybe, a little more compassion can help preserve your peace while you continue doing work that matters.

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