How to Process the Unexpected Emotions of Career Change and Find Fulfilling Ways to Use Your Medical Training

Are you struggling with the idea of leaving your medical career after years of hard work, feeling a mix of grief, guilt, and uncertainty about what’s next?

Today I interview Natalie Dillon, who dropped out of medical school due to a personal tragedy, only to stumble upon a career path that unlocked a new level of fulfillment for her. If you’ve invested 10+ years in medicine and are now questioning your future, this episode will help you navigate the unexpected emotions of leaving your career and explore new, fulfilling ways to use your medical training.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• How to process the grief and identity loss that comes with leaving medicine.
• A medically adjacent career path that allows you to continue making an impact while enjoying more freedom and flexibility.
• One simple step to start exploring new career options that you can do during your lunch break! If you actually take it.

Don’t let uncertainty hold you back. Click play now to learn how to turn your medical experience into a fulfilling, flexible career!

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

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There were a lot of times that my husband just found me on the floor, like crying and in tears it's very much like a loss of a person. It's a part of you that you've held on to for so long 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 Turgeon. 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. In this episode, you'll hear from Natalie Dillon who dropped out of med school due to a personal tragedy. And then stumbled upon a new career path that unlocked next levels of fulfillment for her. You'll learn how to process the grief and identity loss that comes with leaving a career you've invested 10 plus years into you learn about a medically adjacent career that lets you make an impact while also enjoying more freedom and flexibility. And one simple step to explore a new career that you can do on your lunch break. If you actually take it, that is. Let's dive in. Can you give us a quick background on your clinical training and How you got started in the medical field. Yeah, absolutely. Like many of the listeners. I knew that I wanted to be a doctor from an early age. So I did all the things, I went to undergrad to get my undergraduate and microbiology and immunology. I was accepted in a medical school. I completed three years of medical school and had a personal tragedy. Really? My father got really sick. And that was right in the midst of like board exams. And it was really difficult for me to juggle all of those things. And taking some advice from a mentor, I stepped away from medicine for my mental health and to handle some of my personal items and eventually transitioned into the masters of public health program, which I'm so excited to talk to you about today, because it was honestly one of the. Most pivotal moments of my career, which, spurred me to where I am today. What I have noticed and felt with myself is that it's really hard. To go through medicine and like medical training and have anything else happen in your life. It's a very all consuming career path where there's really not much room for you to have a personal life, be a person, especially if something like a personal tragedy is happening. Talk me through what was happening for you at that time. It was heart wrenching in some regards, because, I was in a completely different state as my entire family. I was solo. And my heart wanted to be there to support my dad and kind of be in the midst of what he was going through. And so it's very difficult to. have to be mentally focused as you are with medical school, but then to, to have this really large thing that you're trying to juggle emotionally on the side. So it was very difficult, probably the toughest part of my life. I was really struggling from a academic standpoint, and I honestly did not think I would be stepping away permanently. I thought it was just a timeout, so to speak, while I got everything else in order but honestly, having the mentor there to guide me and transition to the master of public health program. Really met all the check boxes. I thought I was missing out on with the MD route. I was still able to help people. I was still looking at a population's health. I was still able to make a difference in that impact just from a, honestly, a larger scale. So you had that mentor, and it sounds like they really helped guide you. What were those conversations like? Did they just automatically present you with this idea of MPH or how did you come to that? my mentor is amazing. The 1st thing they did was listen and support, especially understanding where I was in that moment. And I could not be more appreciative of them. Just. Being that listening ear for me. And once I processed that grief of leaving medical school behind, it was, okay, what do I do now? My entire life has been devoted to this goal, and now I'm placed in this world where there's so many different possibilities that I truly never explored. So what do I do now? And that's when they really stepped in and they were like Oh, this may be a really good fit. It's very closely aligned. Even a lot of doctors are getting their MPH, right? So I was like, okay, maybe this will be my transition back to medical school, right? And then I started doing some research and I read Demon in the Freezer. And honestly, I was hooked. I was like, this disease detective thing just really aligns well to like my love of mysteries, my love of medicine. It just seems like a really nice blend. And I started doing the courses. And I just really fell in love with not only the material, but the environment, the very supportive environment of the MPH program. You said something that really stuck with me because this is something a lot of my clients have struggled with is okay, when you're in medicine and you're thinking about going into medical, you have that tunnel vision. And then there's like a grief that you have to process. When you let that go, how did you process that? Yeah, I would say not well, it was with a lot of family support. There were a lot of times that my husband just found me on the floor, like crying and in tears and I don't know what to do. And he was so supportive and so patient and kind when I was processing this and I was like, no, take your time. We'll figure it out together. But it's very much like a loss of a person. It's a part of you that you've held on to for so long that you really have to learn to let go of forgive yourself because you feel like in a way it was your fault, right? Even though it was circumstances that you don't necessarily have control over. So it really, it was like processing a loss. And I think it's powerful to frame it in that way because it actually gives it the language and the context that it needs. Because otherwise it can just feel like, why am I so upset about this? I don't get it. I don't understand. And we can just it what it is and like what it feels like. I think that also helps in the processing. I don't think if I had not given myself that ability to stop, pause and reflect that I would have been able to have that clean slate of, okay, I am shedding one skin, so to speak, and blossoming into another to really devote myself and focus my energies onto this other chapter of my life. And that's exactly how I saw it. I saw it as, okay, this. This chapter is closing for now. It may reopen at some point in the future, but now I'm going to devote all my energies into this new chapter. How did you realize that doing an MPH was going to also align with what you wanted? So this is my due diligence period where you talk to people who are in that similar field. You research it. I honestly didn't even know a masters of public health existed. I didn't know what epidemiologists did. Before when I was in medical school I knew a little bit because we were starting to learn about public health while in medical school, but not to the extent that I felt comfortable stepping into that career. So I did a lot of due diligence. But really for me, The why of why I wanted to become a doctor was because I wanted to help people, right? I wanted to impact a population who is very vulnerable and not seen traditionally in medicine. And I wanted to provide the type of care that I wanted as a patient. And what I saw my parents and my family members go through and I was able to see how I could do all those same things in public health. It was just instead of looking at a patient 1 to 1, I was looking at the data and trying to understand why does this patient receive this level of care? And this patient doesn't. And how can I dive deeper so that we can make systematic changes? So taking a step back and looking at it at that level, really helped me see how it could check those boxes. I think that takes a level of like cognitive flexibility, because it sounds like you, you drilled down into why was I wanting to be a doctor in the first place? what's that essence there? And are there other ways for me to express that? Yes, exactly. And part of being a doctor is being a detective, right? Like someone presents these symptoms to you and you're having to figure out what's wrong with them in a very short amount of time. It's very similar. As a data analyst, you get all of this data, and you're having to really diagnose the issue within the data. And so it's very similar. When you think of it in that stance. And there was a book that you read that made you realize you wanted to do that? What was the book called? It was called Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston. Okay. It's probably like the sexiest side of epidemiology because it's not all like that. It's global transmission of, these viral epidemics. But yes, I knew exactly after I read that book, it was like, this is exactly what I want to do. It was this epidemiologist who looked at this virus. And then worked backwards to understand who patient zero was, right? So it was asking the right questions to get to a level of understanding. So you could figure out what was going on. It's just, it wasn't with the one patient. It was with the population. And so it was like, okay this makes sense to me. Yeah. I love that. Now that you actually do it, does the day to day of Your career in your life. Does that look and feel like you thought it was when you were reading that book? Absolutely not. I'd love to say that it does. I know for some epidemiologists in the world, it does look very closely related to that. For me after having kids, I wanted something a little safer than to, dive into, these really, deadly diseases, and I get my hands dirty there. So what I do today is very different, but I love it in a different way that I didn't imagine I would. So I've been a leader in analytics for the past five years, but I've been in the analytics industry for 10 years. And I work with healthcare data today massaging it and helping really tell the story of how we're doing as a population where we, could improve where we are struggling. But I also am the founder of the healthcare analytics Academy, which helps others. Transition into healthcare data as a healthcare data analyst. It's remote, which is amazing, because again, it lends to that flexibility and being able to have the kind of lifestyle that I really want, which I probably would not have been able to do as a doctor. So on a day to day, I'm waking up, I have a lot of meetings where I'm meeting with stakeholders to help them understand. What's going wrong with their blood pressure data and how we can improve our diabetes initiatives and how we can look at our equity and inclusion and improve our disparities among different diseases. And then at night, I work with clients, helping them get into data analytics and helping them improve where they are in their career journeys. What do you feel like you're able to do in this career path that like maybe wouldn't have been as possible for you if you were working clinically? Oh, that's a great question. I honestly think it just boils down to the flexibility and the impact. I think because I'm not on this rigid schedule of having to see patients. One on one throughout my entire day. I have the flexibility to step away to go for a walk to take time for myself to sit down and eat lunch, right? These are things that I did not have previously. But I also am making an impact, not just for a patient and not just for a practice, but honestly, for an entire community, an entire population, which is really humbling. When I sit back and think about, all the work that I've done over my career. What advice would you give another health care professional who maybe they feel a pull towards doing something besides clinical medicine, but they also just feel skeptical and unsure about leaving. So I recently was listening to the calm app.And they were talking about not needing to take these giant leaps, but like tiny steps right to introduce yourself into something. That really resonated with me. So if somebody is interested and just teetering right into this career journey. I'd recommend talking with the people who own the data wherever you work. There's analysts, healthcare analysts, business intelligence analysts there are committees who, review that data. And you can be a part of those. You can just take one little step to understand, how are my patients doing like outcome wise compared to other, doctors in this practice and really just starting to get comfortable with the data to help better inform your practice, I think is really a good first step just to understand do I like looking at data, right? Do I notice anything? Are there trends that I'm seeing? Can I do something when I see this data? And then from there, if you find that interesting, you can start taking those further next steps and maybe an advisory capacity. Analyst. who are classically trained, don't have the clinical background that someone who comes in from the clinical side does, which I found really fascinating. So I was able to act as a liaison, starting out with the doctors and the analysts, which I think someone who might be interested in jumping into this field would find that a good middle ground. I love the idea of tiny steps because that's something I tell my clients all the time. It's it doesn't have to be all or nothing let's just try and experiment. And so I love the idea of there's people already at your institution who have the data, go talk to them and just look at it like they could just be like a lunch break kind of thing. How do you find those people? Who are they? You probably do not see them like walking around and rounding. They're probably in a little cubicle somewhere far on the other side of the hospital or the practice. It's really if you see analysts like clinical analysts, financial analysts, if you're interested in like how the finances work Business intelligence analysts, anything that kind of speaks to that analytical role that'd be a really good person just to take out for a lunch and understand what they do and understand how the data works and what they are pulling and what they're seeing. Okay. So you just like search for your neighbor, your friendly neighborhood analyst, and then you're like, Hey, show me your data. I'm like they'll get it. Yes. We'd love to do that. We're like, yes, you want to learn about data. I will show you all the things. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. So you're just speaking their language. It's not going to bother them. They are interested in sharing the data with you. That's so cool. I love that hack because it's just so practical and it's something anyone can do if they're interested in that career path. Is there anything else you want to leave us with before we close out for today? would probably just leave you with a quote that I really love that I share with my students from Arthur Ashe, which says, start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. And I love it because a lot of times we feel like we need to have You know, an MPH behind our name, or we need additional classes or courses, and really, you have pretty much all that you need starting out, right? You have a clinical background. You have expertise in something where you can share that information with those who can use it to pull the data to understand. So don't feel like you have to go out and do this daily. Take these big steps, really just use what you have to share. So there you have it. My loves this episode really makes me think of that quote by Joseph Campbell. We must let go of the life we have planned. So as to accept the life, that's waiting for us. So when it feels like one door is closing for you, may you look for the window? That's opening. And when it feels like someone's throwing a wrench in your plans, might you learn how to Dodge, duck dive and Dodge? Because sometimes the plan we're clinging to. So tightly is not actually what's best for us. And if you're feeling like the clinical medicine door is closing and you want to find your next path, then I invite you to book a 20 minute discovery call with me so that we can map out your new path to career fulfillment. All you have to do is click the link in the show notes or go to coach Chels, md.com/call.