During my last full-time job, when I took a week off, I would return to chaos (hundreds of emails, voicemails, and patient emergencies). It would take me weeks of long hours to recover from the vacation thus creating more stress. I started to avoid long vacations.

When I was completely burned out, I left the job and cashed in almost two months worth of vacation time. I probably wouldn't have burned out if I could have taken a long vacation but that wasn't how the clinic was designed. I don't know how to fix this but it certainly is a problem!