5 Signs It's Time For a Career Change

Are you constantly questioning if you should stay in clinical medicine? You spent years working to get to this point, but now you wonder if working in medicine is worth the toll it takes on your mental and physical health.

After listening to this episode you’ll be able to identify if working in the current healthcare system is right for you, so you can finally answer that haunting question: should I stay or should I go?

You’ll discover:

• The top personality traits that struggle within our current healthcare system.
• 5 key signs that you may be better off leaving the system entirely.
• How to overcome the doubts and societal pressures keeping you in a career that’s not aligned with your true self.

This episode is designed to give you clarity and permission to make the best decision for your well-being and future.

Ready to find the right path for you? Click play now to start creating a work life that resonates deeply with your values and passions!

To help you pinpoint exactly WHY you are unhappy in your career and figure out your next steps go to coachchelsmd.com/diagnose

Life After Medicine explores doctors' journey of finding purpose beyond their medical careers, addressing physician burnout, career changes, opportunities in non-clinical jobs for physicians and remote jobs within the healthcare system without being burned out, using medical training.

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Life After Medicine explores doctors' journey of finding purpose beyond their medical careers, addressing physician burnout, career changes, opportunities in non-clinical jobs for physicians and remote jobs within the healthcare system without being burned out, using medical training.

Transcript

0:00

This episode will help you identify if working in the current healthcare system is right for you. So you can finally answer that question. That's been haunting you of should I stay or should I go.

Chelsea: 0:14

Welcome to Life After Medicine, the podcast helping millennial health professionals leave the system, find their purpose, and turn it into their paycheck. I'm your host, Chelsea Terjan. In 2019, I quit my OBGYN residency. I had this gut feeling there was something more for me than 15 minute patient visits under fluorescent lights. Now, I'm a six figure entrepreneur, podcaster, and career coach. I get to do work I love. On my own terms, all while traveling the world. My mission is to help you follow your pull towards something more so you can find work you enjoy that doesn't burn you out. Don't worry. It's not a pipe dream. I'm here to show you exactly how it's done.

1:07

In this episode, you'll learn the top personality traits that I have seen struggle hardcore, and I just don't think are a fit for the current health care system. You'll learn five signs that you may be better off just leaving the system entirely. Understanding these five signs can help validate your current feelings and experiences so that you can overcome any of the doubts and societal pressures that are keeping you in a career. That's no longer aligned. One time I was on a call with a podcast listener she's having a hard time working in clinical medicine. And she asked, I just want to know. Have I tried hard enough yet. Have I tried hard enough to make it work. Because. When we're unhappy in medicine, most people try to convince us to find a way to stay and salvage our degree somehow. People told me, well, why don't you become a radiologist? Because then you can read x-rays from a beach or why don't you become a over the hospitalist, then you can take time off so that you can travel. We try so hard to make it work and what we really need, what this episode is going to give us is a series of clear indicators that we're not crazy. That we're not being hasty that it's okay to leave. My clients who ultimately leave the system have these five things in common. And if you have at least one of these signs, then. This will help give you permission and let you know it's okay to leave. Number one, they don't want the responsibility of life or death decisions. Having the responsibility of life or death decisions. Is so massive. And yes, you hypothetically know that when you're signing up to work in medicine or be a doctor that you're taking on that responsibility. Sure. But you can't actually know what that feels like. Until you are living it. Once you're trying to get out, it's also okay. If you no longer want that. Because it is such a huge weight to carry I admire the crap out of people who take this on and it's just not right for everyone. Some of us are more prone to anxiety. And sure we can work through anxiety, but it's also okay. If you don't want to, if you don't want to be constantly working through this. So if you notice that you're worrying 24 7 about patient outcomes, if you're checking the charts out, Nights and on weekends. It's possible. You just don't want the weight of life or death decisions and that's okay. You're allowed to not want that. Try it on just saying that and see what it feels like. Say it like, I don't want the weight of life or death decisions. It wasn't until I was teaching English in South Korea and I realized If I make a mistake, if I mess up, the worst thing that could happen is some kid in Korea doesn't learn English as well as they could. Right. And that felt so nice. It just felt like such a relief there was so much stress that was gone If you don't want the responsibility of life or death decisions, if that just does not appeal to you. That is a sign. That's a sign that it's probably time to leave the healthcare system. Number two is you want to make more of an impact. So most of us get into medicine because we want to help people. But as I'm sure that you've noticed in the current way, the healthcare system set up. really limits and handicaps how much we can actually help people. We're limited in both breadth and depth, because it's so focused on this factory turning. And so what my clients who decide to leave the system. Tends to want to make an impact in a way that feels meaningful to them. Either helping people more deeply and fully. Or helping people on a bigger scale. So let's talk about breadth. Breadth is about the bigger scale. It's like how many people you can help. If you crave more breadth, you maybe want to help more than just one person at a time. You long to make a difference, maybe on the scale of policy or on educating larger groups of patients, you want to be a speaker. You want to, you want a bigger platform, more of a microphone. You want to be able to work in influence. Bigger groups of people. One of my clients recently said to me, like I'm running out of time to save the world because she had these dreams of helping on a bigger scale. So that is wanting to have more breadth. And then there's also depth. The depth is how fully and completely you can help one person. To where it just makes this lasting impact on their lives. Can you think of anyone who made such a big impact on you? usually it's not somebody who just spent 15 minutes with you in an exam room, because what can be frustrating about clinical medicine is you get 15 minutes to help someone and you can maybe make a dent in one problem. But there's so many other factors at play that you don't get to address. And so if you're craving more depth, usually what that looks like is you want to spend more time with one person. You want to be able to unpack like their issues. I remember having patients with like chronic pelvic pain and. Knowing that, sexual trauma is a huge cause of chronic pelvic pain. And. I wanted to unpack that but I didn't have the tools to do that. I didn't know how to even talk about trauma or sexual assault. Instead of just referring or sending out for more tests I wanted to be able to heal and address trauma. So if you want to make more of an impact. And you feel like you're being kind of stunted in your ability to make an impact because of the system. That is a sign that it's time to leave the healthcare system. Number three is that freedom is one of your highest values. My clients who are happier when they leave the system, it's because they hold freedoms. So highly. Now here's the thing. If you value security. More than you value freedom. You won't leave and that's okay. So you need to be clear about where those values rank, it doesn't mean you can't have security if you leave, but if security is higher up on your values, ranking than freedom. You won't leave. Freedom has to be higher than security for sure. It needs to be pretty high up on the top of what is important to you. Usually this value of freedom looks like some version of flexibility, so longing to make your own decisions about how and where you spend your time. Being able to rearrange your schedule last minute, without huge consequences, without having to run it by so many people maybe you want to have the ability to work more asynchronously. So when people are not really reliant on your, you showing up at a specific time, but you can complete tasks sort of on a general timeline. The hard truth of clinical medicine is that it can be a very rigid profession. And especially from a time standpoint, If freedom is one of your highest values. It's been really hard to make that work in a system that is very rigid and inflexible. Number four, if you're highly sensitive or introverted, the current healthcare system is not set up for introverts for highly sensitive people or really people with any type of neurodivergence. The physician work room. It's so loud. I never understood how people got work done. There's just so many distractions. There's people fighting for your attention nurses coming in and saying like, Hey, can this patient be scheduled here? And you're having to give your approval. You're also trying to type. Your notes. You're trying to look up the patient. That's next. You're trying to come up with the plan and put in orders. And there's so many things going on at once. It's, it's hard to even get anything done, if you have ADHD like me, or if you're introverted and just don't want this constant stimuli around you. the sensory stimuli in general. If you're highly sensitive, there's generally like really harsh, fluorescent lighting in the clinics in the hospital rooms it's pretty upfronting to your senses. It's not like calm and peaceful. Like you think of you go to a spa and you know how like beautiful it. And you just like walk in and you feel relaxed because the lighting is low and there's. Nice music. And when you walk into a clinic and it's absolutely not like that at all, it's very harsh and industrial. The walls are bare and it's just not pretty. And that actually matters to some of us, we spend so much time at work and if the environment that we're spending our time and it's just like really harsh, to our senses that is, is difficult for us. There's usually not a lot of. Windows with natural light or plants. And there's a lot of a loud noises and just it's it's sensory overload for a lot of us. the pace of clinical medicine is it's pretty fast and relentless and you know, we're turning out, like we've talked about this 15 minute patient visits, the factory system. It's just not set up for people who are more sensitive to their environment who needs the space for quiet reflection who want to move at a slower pace. And the shame of it is. Those people make excellent healers. And the system is not set up for them. Number five is if you long to be more creative. So my clients who have decided to leave the system usually have some sort of creative streak. And now this doesn't mean that. They're like talented artists or exceptional musicians, some of them are, or that they've like a mass, any significant skill in creative pursuits. It just means they feel a longing to be more creative. And to express their creativity in a deeper way. When I was making my decision to leave, I never considered myself a creative person, even though I sang and danced, I still never considered myself creative, but I was feeling so many pulls towards creativity. I wanted to write poetry and blogs and stories, to, explore photography. I just was feeling this pull to express myself in new and different ways. And of course it's possible to pursue creative aspirations on the side while you're working in the system. But there's something about working in a system. That can just be kind of baseline stifling to creativity. Whether that's because of the time, the stress, just the narrow mindset and the skepticism that you have to take while you're working it can be really taxing to switch contexts back and forth between sort of creative flowy expression. And like just the way you have to be like the sterile masculine way you have to be in Madison. So my clients who decide to leave clinical medicine usually have these deeper creative aspirations that they are longing to express. They want to. Write books or poetry, they want to dance. They want to innovate. They want to make art. That doesn't mean they necessarily want to do that as their full-time thing. But they just feel this pull to be more creative. Quick recap. Five signs that it's time to leave the healthcare system one. You don't want the responsibility of life or death decisions to you want to make more of an impact either in the breadth or the depth. Three. Freedom is one of your highest values for you are highly sensitive, introverted, or have some kind of neurodivergence five you long to be more creative. My clients who ultimately decided to leave the system and are thriving outside of the system, generally have these five things in comments. If you have even one of these signs, it's time to give yourself permission, slip that you need. Like. It's okay. You've tried hard enough to make it work. You've tried hard enough to force that square peg into the round hole. It's okay. To let yourself leave. If you feel like you have any of these five signs and you want a clear understanding of exactly what it is. That's not really working for you in clinical medicine or in the system. I have a free audio series that can help you diagnose your career on happiness. This helps you pinpoint exactly why you're unhappy in your career, which will help you figure out your next steps. You can download. If you go to coach Chels, md.com/diagnose, and that will take you through a series of podcast episodes to help you. Cut to the bottom of what's going wrong so that you can start to create a plan of treatment for what will. Help things feel right. Thanks so much for listening and I will see you next time.