Thinking about leaving clinical medicine? Here’s What NO ONE Tells You about making a career change- 6 surprising truths.

Are you considering leaving medicine but worried about what might happen if you do?

If you're feeling trapped in a career that no longer fulfills you, this episode will address the unspoken fears and hidden truths about leaving clinical medicine. Learn what really happens when you walk away from your medical career and why it might be the best decision you ever make.

After listening to this episode you’ll learn:

• how you can make an informed decision about If leaving your medical career is right for you
• what people REALLY think about you when you quit being a doctor
• the two most surprising parts of leaving clinical medicine.

Don’t let fear hold you back—listen to this episode now and gain the clarity you need to make the best decision for your future!

If you want to create a viable exit strategy and find work you enjoy that doesn't burn you out. You can grab this free training, go to coachchelsmd.com/pivot so that I can help you plan your pivot.

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.

FREE 5 Part Audio series to kickstart your path to meaningful work >> https://coachchelsmd.com/careerkickstart/

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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

Chelsea: 0:18

In this episode, I'm going to demystify what actually happens when you leave your medical career and shine the light on some things that nobody tells you about leaving the medical field

0:31

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.

Chelsea: 1:24

Welcome back to another episode thank you so much for pressing play today. After listening to this episode, you'll be able to make an informed decision about If leaving your medical career is right for you, you'll learn what people really think about you when you quit being a doctor and the two most surprising parts of leaving clinical medicine. Let's get to the show. What are the things that no one tells you about leaving clinical medicine? Number one, working in medicine is not the only way to help people and this feels so obvious but I do think that it needs to be said because we get pitched this idea that working in medicine is a calling and it's so noble and yes absolutely it is and there's so many ways to help people that can be wildly satisfying. And what I've actually found out is you're most likely to feel satisfaction and contentment and helping people when you're helping people. Using your strengths and using your zone of genius when you're using the gifts and talents, the things that you're best at to help people, that's when you feel the highest amount of fulfillment and satisfaction. It's not when you're doing something that society has dubbed objectively more important than anything else. It's when you get to use your unique skills and zone of genius. in a way that benefits others. That's the correlation of satisfaction. And that's when you truly feel like you're helping people. Because so many of my clients have come to me and said, yeah, I know that I'm helping people, but it doesn't feel like I'm helping people. The reason is because you're not necessarily using your unique strength and zone of genius to help So, I want you to know that working in medicine is not the only way to help people. what else does no one tell you about leaving medicine? you don't get tarred and feathered on the street, or at least I haven't yet. Like, nobody throws tomatoes at you. You're not publicly disgraced from society. There's this fear that people are going to think less of us. That we're going to have to walk around with our tail between our legs for the rest of days. But what I've noticed is most people really don't think anything less of you. Your reputation in the court of public opinion is really not damaged that much when you leave your medical career. There's some people who make a stink about it, but usually the most antagonistic response I get is truly just confusion. People honestly don't understand why I would want to leave such a fulfilling career path. Well, especially when I say that I, Oh, I used to be an OBGYN. People will look at me and be like, Oh, that must've been so fulfilling or wow. Like that must've been so great. And. They're really just confused, I'll just say something simple to clear it up, like, Well, I really didn't do well working 24 hour shifts or being on my feet for 80 hours a week. And then they tend to get it pretty quickly. They're like, oh yeah, that would suck, right? People who are not in the medical field don't really understand the reality of being a doctor. And so usually they're just confused. And when you clear that up, it's not a big deal. and for the most part, any judgment that's directed your way is only coming from jealousy or from a low place. So we don't tend to judge people when we feel happy and content with our lives. But honestly, there were much more people. just happy for me, said, good for you. I thought about getting out too. And so it's okay. Like you're not going to be publicly disgraced. Most people either don't care or they understand, or they're just a little confused and they just need you to help clear it up for them obviously there's some outliers, but in my experience, that's really all that I've gotten. Okay, something that really no one tells you about leaving clinical medicine, the skills you learn working in medicine are transferable to literally everything. There's this idea that circles around in Facebook groups and on the interwebs that's like, We don't have any transferable skills or like, Oh, being a doctor is such a niche. Like we have a very special set of skills and they can't be transferred. That is actually the most ridiculous thing I've heard. I can't imagine a profession with more transferable skills than medicine. I just had a client recently who is an orthopedic surgeon and she is starting her own business and she was doing some of her first sales calls and she was telling me how much her skills as a doctor translated to sales skills. She was like, I knew how to build really good rapport in this short period of time and doing all of those years of patient interviews actually helped me to sort of cut to the heart of like diagnosing like what is the problem and I was really comfortable asking questions and getting close with people and having these deeper conversations with strangers and that translated to sales skills. I had another client she was an ophthalmologist and was doing oculoplastic surgery. And she realized from years of doing a microsurgery that she had incredible hand coordination. So she went to a shooting range with one of her friends and was just like this excellent shot, just hitting those bullseyes. And then she started trying oil painting for the first time. And she was like, like immediately a prodigy at oil painting and started, she's like, wow, I'm actually really good. So she started painting pet portraits for her friends and family, and then actually started selling them on Etsy. Sometimes they can seem more like soft skills. And even some of the more ridiculous things like you learn how to speak authoritatively even when you have no idea what's going on. That translates to just great confidence. You can bullshit. You can nail an interview. People just see that you hold yourself with a higher sense of confidence and people just automatically believe what you say. Now You need to wield that power. for good and not for evil, but it really is a skill that you learn working in the medical field. You also learn how to have this presence that makes people feel calm in a crisis. You can bring this sense of calm and ease you learn how to keep yourself composed in chaotic situations that can translate in any work environment. What I want you to realize is that as you're going through your medical training, you are building up a dope set of skills, and those can transfer to everything. You're developing some of the highest skills, like Navy SEAL level skills, and those can transfer, baby. It's just all about how you sell yourself. I don't understand who came up with the idea that we don't have transferable skills. That doesn't even make sense to me. Something else that nobody tells you about leaving medicine is there's this other idea that no other job will pay what you make clinically. But that's us looking at maybe like an annual salary. What we're not doing is really factoring in the hours that we're working because maybe you're taking a pay cut from an annual salary sense, but you're actually working significantly less hours. And so, yes, it's technically a pay cut, but your time is so much more free. And with that time, And you could use that to earn money in other ways, or with that time, maybe you're just less stressed and happier. And so you're not spending on things to try to solve for your stress. So something they don't tell you is a pay cut may not actually be a pay cut because you might be working significantly less hours. So when you're looking at salaries, be sure to factor in all the time that you're saving. Because clinical medicine requires a lot of unpaid time. It's ridiculous. I can't even, oh man, the things we used to do for free. I would never, never do those things for free anymore. The committees people join, the, the meetings they stay for all for free, the overtime they work. No, no. Two of the things that surprised me most about leaving medicine that nobody told me was there is this weight that's lifted when you're no longer making life or death decisions. And it feels pretty remarkable, actually, but I think it felt so remarkable because I knew what the heaviness of life or death decisions felt like. When I was teaching English in South Korea, I, was just able to clearly see like, yeah, I took my job seriously. Yes, I wanted to do a good job, but I didn't feel stressed about it because I knew there aren't lives on the line and the weight of that being lifted. It's like, I didn't know I was carrying it until it was gone. That was something that really surprised me. I didn't realize how much I was carrying that. And then the second thing that really surprised me is how long it took for the stress to leave my body. the whole first year after I left medicine, I was still in a state of hypervigilance and stress that I just didn't realize because I thought that was just normal reality. And then when COVID hit and I slowed down and I spent more time just by myself and started doing yoga, I started releasing stress from my body that was packed deep down in there. For about a year, every time I did yoga, I would be sobbing and crying on the mat at some point during the class. I didn't understand why it's not that I was sobbing because I was sad. It's like, I all of a sudden felt this deep emotion coming out of my body and being released. And what that was was it was the stress and the trauma leaving my body. And sometimes it's still my body. So it takes years. It takes years for you to fully down regulate and feel calm again. It took years for me to stop waking up in a panic, feeling like I forgot something. I missed something. I need to check on something. Something's not okay. I was in that state of hypervigilance for so long. And Your body is so good at just adapting to its circumstances that you start to just normalize that constant feeling of hypervigilance and stress. And you really don't realize how stressed you are until you leave, until you stop repeatedly exposing yourself to these high stress environments. And then the final thing I want to share and what I want to leave you with What people don't tell you about leaving medicine is that the world keeps turning and everyone's gonna be fine without you. We feel this codependency that we can't let our patients down, we can't let our co workers down, the team needs us, we gotta be team players. But, the truth is They're going to figure it out. The world keeps turning. Everyone will be perfectly fine without you. Truly, in the world of corporate and academic medicine, you really are just a cog in the wheel. Sure, people might miss you, but they're going to be okay. Your patients will be fine. Your co workers will be fine. The staff at your hospital will be fine. Everyone will be okay. without you. That doesn't mean you weren't great at what you do. It doesn't mean they won't miss you. That doesn't mean you didn't have a great, wonderful impact on these people. But at the end of the day, they're going to be perfectly fine without you. So I hope this has helped address some of those fears that you're holding about leaving medicine. Some of those things that are keeping you stuck, making you feel like, Oh, I can't just leave. I hope this episode has addressed some of those fears and myths so that you can just breathe a sigh of relief and feel a little bit more reassured that you It's okay. It's okay to make a decision that is right for you.

13:20

if you're feeling burnt out and disillusioned and want help planning out your next steps, I have a free training called plan. Your pivot. This training teaches you how to create a viable exit strategy and find work. You enjoy that. Doesn't burn you out. You can grab this training totally for free. I go to coach Chels, md.com/pivot. So that I can help you plan your pivot