I’m sorry that you died before I got chance to hear your story. While I was fumbling around, trying to get blood from your dehydrated veins, you were trying to tell me about a special day you’d experienced 30 years ago. You were so proud and I promised to return some time later to hear about the day in full.

But I also cruelly cut you off mid-sentence because five other patients on my ward needed blood samples taking. My other 31 patients also needed critical and urgent tasks that I had to perform in order to keep them safe and help them heal. Right before you rapidly deteriorated and died, the last thing you experienced was a harried, overworked doctor interrupting your joyful reminiscence.

And I am sorry to my other patients because this situation – where I am forced, for their safety, to be cold – is a daily occurrence. People will make a joke about the food, or the view from the window, and I won’t have time to laugh and share the fun; the best I can manage is a fleeting smile as I rush past.

I am a burnt-out doctor. This is why it matters | Eileen Parkes Read more

I remember the wife of a patient who desperately wanted her husband’s incurable disease to be reversed. I wanted to be present while she told me how the two of them had met when they were both 18, how they’d had three children together, and how they’d planned for an activity-packed retirement that, sadly, would now never happen. But the awful truth is I was only half-listening. I was thinking about my immediate problems: scans I needed to order, results of investigations I needed to act on. I am forced to choose between keeping patients and their loved ones safe and showing compassion. I am very sorry for this.

I have to prioritise key tasks to treat people. Even just doing this for patients is near impossible for the depleted staff team on the ward. We keep people safe but we are so overstretched that any extras, such as conversation, are luxuries that, should I indulge, would leave them unsafe and their condition worsening. Even working over my contracted hours, without a break in the day – not even to relieve my bladder – I cannot get everything done.

Has this job taken my humanity? I’m not unkind; I am deeply sorry for the effects of this system failure. I can’t allow myself to feel guilty. The regular overtime I put in, the family occasions I am forced to miss, the social engagements that I have to cancel last minute - all help keep that guilt at bay.

I am proud of the work I do but my ability to connect with people as they lie there with only hours left is continually pervaded by an overstretched, underfunded NHS workforce. Desperately sick people and my humanity can’t both survive. For someone who became a doctor to care, that is gut-wrenchingly difficult to accept.

If you would like to contribute to our Blood, sweat and tears series about experiences in healthcare, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com