You Are Worth More
If you’re stressed out or burning out from your stressful job, you dread getting out of bed in the morning. When your feet hit the floor and you drag yourself into another damaging, poorly malleable day, you are saying “Yes” to something.
Our current healthcare delivery model reminds me of a Netflix series I just watched called Squid Games. These desperate people who were in huge amounts of debt (where the bad guys were gonna take their kidneys and eyeballs if they didn’t pay up) signed up to win an insane amount of cash at the completion of a game.
As you might expect, the game was horrifically violent. And at various intervals the players had the opportunity to stop and decide if they would continue enduring the game’s brutality or free themselves from it. The vast majority continued to play. They continued to say “Yes.”
It made me think of you as a job-stressed physician or clinician.
When you go to work, you're voting with your feet....
Examine Your Past to Remember Your Future
If you're a stressed-out, burning-out physician considering new work but confused about your next steps, you can get clarity. And one way to get clarity about your future work is to look back at your decision to pursue medicine.
What's your story? Did you choose medicine because of other's dreams for you--dreams of prestige, influence, and presumptive wealth? Or perhaps you wanted to be a healer since day one. How did you get here?
Consider the moment you decided to pursue medicine and what fueled that decision? Look at it, eyes wide open. How much of a fit was it?
What I saw when I looked back.
I’ve always loved to read and learn, writing my first book at 8 years old. When it came time to choose my life’s work at the tender age of 15, my grandmother suggested medical school. I thought, “That sounds cool.” What a great way to learn about life! Of course I wanted to help people. But it wasn’t until a patient vomited on my shoe that it hit me:...
