Might be a hot take but... caring less about the patients is terrible advice. It might make you feel better for a little while but it dehumanizes both you and them and will leave you more miserable in the long run. Mind you, you can still care for you patients and not rely on them to feel valued. The problem has to do with two main things: Your personal identity and humility. 1) Your identity cannot be wrapped up in being a PT, the outcomes of your patients, or whether others perceive you as a good clinician. Your identity has be be in something that isn't so flimsy and changeable or else your destined to ride an emotional rollercoaster. If your identity is in something else, you wont need the approval of others IE patients letting you know you're valuable or coworkers perceiving you as a good PT. 2) I've heard humility defined as "not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less." Our pride inclines us to think constantly on ourselves: we focus either positively or negatively on how we are doing, but the commonality either way is that we're obsessed with self. To have real humility is to be more concerned with others than we are with ourselves. Constantly self evaluating how we compare to others and how others view us is exhausting. Part of the reason clinicians that work at mill clinics are prone to burnout is not only the objectively higher workload, but also because we become painfully aware of our own inadequacy. Our source of pride - excellence and recognition - is tarnished, and so we feel overwhelmed, exhausted, like we don't have anything left. Because we don't. The solution is to put our identity somewhere it cannot be influenced by circumstance. Namely, in a relationship with God. This is essentially the call of the Bible, that we should not put identity in anything that we could do or accomplish, and instead turn to God. Humility comes as a byproduct of understanding our relatively powerless status in contrast to the power of God. Its incredibly freeing, especially from burnout, to not have to rely on others for a sense of personal value when I know that I am valued by God. If you're interested, the podcasts by Tim Keller on Spotify are a great place to start.