I wanted to be there for my patients. Instead, I was looking for printer paper for the fax machine.

I am a physician. I studied medicine because I wanted to work with people and help them.

In day-to-day hospital life, things looked different. I had patients who needed me — and I was sitting at the computer. I was typing information that already existed in some document. I spent evenings on discharge letters that should have been finished in an hour. I made mistakes because a crucial piece of information was hidden on page five of a prior report that I had not fully read because there was not enough time.

I was frustrated because I had to cancel my evening plans or training because there was still paperwork to do — work that could easily have been automated or delegated. I was frustrated because sometimes I no longer recognized myself: I wanted to be a physician, not a clerk in a system built on distrust.

By now I know that many feel the same way. Since I stopped working clinically, colleagues regularly reach out wanting to leave the hospital — not because they are not good physicians, but because the conditions make it impossible to do what they set out to do. I even wrote a book about it.

aiomics is the attempt to write part two of this story. Not about leaving, but about coming back. Building tools that help physicians return — and stay.