A simple work hack that's changing physicians' lives

By MDLinx staff

Published April 14, 2025

Key Takeaways

Industry Buzz

“Don’t check your email during the day. At all. Ever.” — Karen Leitner, MD, internal medicine and pediatrics physician

In a recent Instagram Reel, internal medicine and pediatrics physician Karen Leitner, MD, issued a simple but firm directive to fellow doctors: Stop checking your email during the workday.

Why? According to Dr. Leitner, the inbox is a “trap door” for efficiency—one that quietly drains time, focus, and mental energy away from clinical duties.

“Your brain is making high-level cognitive decisions all day long. Every time you pull yourself out of that … you open another tab [in your brain],” Dr. Leitner says. “And when you try to go back to the old tab you were just in, it’s like seven complex decisions you have to make to get you back to where you are. It totally steals you from your energy and efficiency.”

Instead, it’s best for physicians to batch email time after work hours and dedicate their in-office time solely to patient care and documentation. It’s a message that’s resonating across the physician community, especially among those drowning in post-shift charting.

For instance, one commenter on Dr. Leitner’s reel said: “This is an important set of ‘hows,’ and I would add that when we become the ‘who,’ the person who never checks emails, the compassionate leader who owns the 10/15/30 minute time slot our patients enter, the ‘how’ presents itself.”

MyChart messages are also a time suck for physicians

In another Instagram Reel, Dr. Leitner tackles a different digital headache: Patients writing novel-length messages in MyChart.

“It is easy to fall into the trap of allowing and writing long MyChart messages,” Dr. Leitner writes in her caption. “You want to do a good job! You want them to like you! But it is not sustainable for the long run and will lead to burnout which isn’t good for you, your family, or your patients.”

She’s not wrong. While patient messaging platforms like MyChart are convenient for quick questions, medication refills, and test results, they weren’t designed to replace the nuance of a real-time clinical visit.

“It’s indicated for short tasks. It’s not indicated for diagnosing and treating a new problem, or going into incredible depth for an existing problem,” Dr. Leitner says in the reel.

So what’s a physician to do when patients send paragraphs-long messages detailing every symptom they’ve had in the last six months?

Dr. Leitner’s advice: Don’t engage.

“When you engage with that, when you respond thoughtfully, thinking you’re doing a good job, you’re basically telling the patient that this is okay,” Dr. Leitner says. “The solution is not to do that. From the very beginning, just say ‘This needs to be a visit.’”

By setting boundaries and reinforcing what these tools are meant for, doctors can protect their time and provide better care.

The bottom line: If you want to stay sane, efficient, and focused during your day, take it from Dr. Leitner—ditch your inbox until your workday is done, and stop treating MyChart like a medical diary.