Women Leaving Medicine

Quitting medicine was the most difficult decision of my life

[This is a guest post]

I just read your post after stumbling on this site and it sounded “hauntingly familiar.”  I had my first son during my 4th year of medical school.  Before he was born, I naively set up childcare and thought it would be easy to leave him after he was born.  After all, during my 3rd year OB/GYN rotation the residents who had babies left them after just 4 weeks and came back to a grueling schedule.  They all seemed fine and even rather proud that they were able to return to work so quickly as if nothing had happened.  But after I had my son I fell in love with him. It pained me to leave him every day - not because he wasn’t receiving good care from others, but because I wanted to provide that care.  I graduated AOA, was accepted into a dermatology residency and was being mentored for an academic position at my medical school. During my 3rd year rotations I loved seeing patients, working with people and solving a challenging diagnosis but during my internship that all changed.  All I wanted to do was finish the work so I could go home and relieve my nanny.   I wound up quitting after completing my preliminary year of internal medicine.  My son was 2 at the time. 

Quitting was the most difficult decision of my life.  After all, I chose derm for the great hours and here I was giving up a family friendly specialty to devote myself fully to family.  EVERYONE, from the residents at the hospital, fellow classmates to my parents and sister (also an MD)  thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life.  They said after the reality of my decision sunk in I would regret it.

I’m here to tell you 11 years and 4 more sons later that it was the best decision of my life.  Today, being able to focus entirely on family is a luxury few women are able to indulge in - either they truly do have to work for financial reasons or they “think” they have to work because of societal or parental expectations.  

If you decide to quit it won’t be easy at first.  You will have to have enough confidence in your personal decision to overcome the negative perception our society holds for the “full-time mother.”  Nobody at the hospital is going to value your decision to be a mother.  But I’ll tell you that many of the women there will secretly wish they had the “balls” to do what you are doing.  I talked to so many women physicians with children while I was in school or training to get some idea of what it was like to have children and work.  Not one of them had happy stories. They were all full of regret - “I never took any time off and you know, now that my children are older, I don’t know why,” or “I spent many sleepless nights on call wandering through the hospital crying” while my kids were at home.  These stories were part of the reason I quit.  What sad lives!!  And why … … . ??

And don’t listen to the money argument.  Money can’t buy time.  Being the best mother I can possibly be to my sons is better than anything I could buy them with my six figure salary - and they will confirm that truth if you ask them.  By living a more modest lifestyle my husband and I have been able to pay off all my student loans (yes, they were the 100 grand style) and save plenty of money along the way.  I have many good friends, also previous professionals - PhD’s, MBA’s, JD’s - who stay home with our children for the time being.  We all chose quality of life and investment in our children over the ability to “buy more stuff.”  However, we are all privileged because we have professional husbands.  

Was our education wasted?  I think not.  We all actively volunteer at our children’s schools and the children, not just ours, benefit from our education and experience.  We’re all still ambitious, just in different ways.  Instead of writing medical grants I’ve been writing grants to establish a bird habitat at my son’s school - and been successful!  

My youngest son is 2 and I’ve been thinking about what I’ll do when he’s in kindergarten.  Maybe I’ll find my way back to medicine.  Maybe I’ll start a business.  Maybe I’ll get another degree - MPH or MBA.  Whatever I choose, medicine will always be there.  

I wish you the best of luck.  These decisions aren’t easy and they are very personal.  You don’t have to stay home forever, and you certainly don’t have to have 5 kids!!  There are many paths.  You  also have to consider you spouse’s needs.  I will say that my marriage has only benefited from my decision.  Having me at home enables my husband to be a better father.  It places our whole family under less stress.  

A doctor’s despair - not sure what the next step is

[This is a guest post]

I was Googling “women leaving medicine” one day when I was particularly down on myself, and found this site and could not stop reading.  Finding out that I am not the only female physician feeling this way gave me chills. So I thought maybe my story should be out there, too. Maybe to help another female doc in my shoes.

I gave birth in my last year of a tough OB residency. I never thought I’d have kids at all, and then when I met and married the right guy (also in medicine), I knew we would start a family but it would definitely be after my training. Because residency meant devoting myself 100% to the hard work of those four years, and that was all that mattered. Then two funny things happened – my friends began having babies (including some who were residents, though none in my program), and I realized I was spending long hours helping everyone else start their families. So why couldn’t we do the same? So we did. And it was the smartest decision I ever made.

Then it changed my perspective on everything and sent me into the tailspin where I currently am.

I began to see every call shift as time taken away from my little guy and my family. Anytime a case went late I became so ridiculously angry because I had such little time at home, and now even less. I was not much fun to be around. I managed to exclusively breastfeed which meant hours upon hours of pumping (which meant coming in early, and the mental gymnastics of coordinating time to pump in my busy unpredictable schedule), but not without some not-so-subtle disapproval from some attendings. However, I knew this was temporary because graduation was only a few months away. I steeled myself because I figured I could do anything for that length of time - and I did. Graduation was like being released from jail, and the freedom was amazing!

I then smartly took a few months off to enjoy the summer being a mom before starting my first attending job. My husband and I moved across the country. I drank up every last moment of that summer. “You’ll get bored,” said many well-meaning people when hearing how much I loved “just” being a mom. “You only feel that way because you have work to look forward to.” Oh, how wrong they were.

I started back at work a few weeks ago. We sprung for a nanny, which in theory should have eased the transition. It didn’t. My first weekend after working was spent clouded in a deep regret. I oscillated between anger at my hours (I was “part time” – a $20,000 pay cut - at 4 days a week yet routinely got  home after 8pm on OR/L&D days) and the type of sadness where you can’t ever imagine being happy. I sobbed and sobbed as my husband looked at me helplessly (I should mention his outpatient-only hours of 8:30-4pm. He’s not the mom. He’s not the one breastfeeding. Why does he get it so easy??). I started talking about quitting, but we both chalked it up to a new job and a tough adjustment. We figured it would get better.

Sadly it hasn’t. So far every week has been the same – power through the work week (where I enjoy talking to my patients, but don’t get that same level of satisfaction from these interactions that I did pre-baby – is that wrong?), miss at least two bedtimes, make it to my day off on Friday and feel completely happy and satisfied at doing things like doing my son’s laundry, taking him to the library, and making dinner. By Saturday the crying starts again because I realize this is true happiness – being my son’s mother. Unfortunately, Monday is approaching. On Sunday, I am a combination of anger and hopelessness as all I can see is the week ahead and the time with my little boy that I will miss. And repeat. It’s not getting better, but worse.

My husband has been extremely supportive. He’s run the numbers if I quit now, or a year from now. We could make it, but that means less money for retirement, and less wiggle room (the med school loans…oh the thought).  I’ve looked in to some alternative ideas at being in medicine but not this way, and he has cheered me on. But the reality is that I am still leaving my son tomorrow and going to work. It causes me physical ache.

How do you suddenly change how you’ve defined yourself for your whole life? It’s easy when it’s on the big screen or someone else’s life, but when it’s yours it is almost too big to comprehend. I was always the girl who excelled in school, just always knew I’d be a doctor. My parents, neither who graduated high school, never pushed me but always supported me. The day I graduated medical school brought tears to my dad’s eyes – my wedding didn’t even do that! I’m their daughter the doctor. This makes them so proud. How can I take that from them? They come from a world of financial instability, so how could they ever understand my leaving a six-figured job? And to that end, is my selfishness at wanting to “just” be a mom putting my son’s future in jeopardy because we will have less money? How can I face those with whom I trained – won’t they see me as a “waste”? How can I leave my new partners who are nothing but nice and hoping that I stay in the practice as it grows? Worst of all – what if I plod along and by the time I figure it out, my son is grown and I’ve missed all the moments that I am dying to be home for?

I can’t see a way out without losing face. The part that gets me the most is…I chose this. I did this to myself.

Thanks for allowing me the space to write this. It does help.

Time to move on from emergency medicine?

[This is a guest post]

I am so relieved to have found this site.  So much of what I have read feels like I could have written it myself.  

My story goes like this: I was one of those people that somehow decided I wanted to be a doctor when I was a child.  My parents (a police officer and a stay at home mom) were thrilled and encouraged it all the way but never pressured me.  I was always good at school and never had trouble getting the grades.  Before I knew it, I was through college and applying to medical school without ever even considering anything else for a career. Too much focus and drive for my own good I think.  It was like it was part of my identity by that point- that I was going to be a doctor- so doing anything else felt like it wouldn’t be me in some way.  The strange part is that when I think about the things that I always naturally enjoyed, it was always creative activities like writing and dancing.  I was always drawn to teaching and mentoring and felt that I could satisfy that in my relationship with my patients as a doctor.  I even wrote my medical school personal statement about the fact that I would be a teacher if I wasn’t a doctor.  There was also a part of being a doctor that appealed to the young feminist in me.  I liked the thought of doing something that was considered to be difficult and “male dominated.”  In medical school, I started to feel the first little twinges of doubt and regret but managed to chalk it up to the fact that the experience in medical school is not the experience of being a doctor and that it would all be better once I was in the right specialty and seeing patients.  I met my the man who is now my husband in my medical school class.  I entered an emergency medicine residency and he actually entered the same the year after.  The feelings of doubt and regret intensified in residency.  Something in my gut just kept telling me that this didn’t feel right- I wasn’t happy.  Once again, I told myself that residency is supposed to be terrible and it would all be better once I was an attending.  Well guess what, I’m a year and a half out of residency now and the doubt and regret are stronger than ever.  I know that this is not right.  I dread going to work.  I find no enjoyment or inspiration in what I do.  That personal interaction with the patient that I always thought would be so rewarding is not, for a myriad of reasons that we are all familiar with.  

Like others, I feel trapped by the enormous amount of debt that I got myself into getting to this point.  I feel guilt because my husband also has a large amount of educational debt and we just bought a house and now I’m talking about stepping out of medicine.  I don’t think it’s fair for me to leave him with the responsibility for my debt.  When I first started talking about leaving medicine, he was reluctant- saying that once we got my debt paid off then I could do whatever I wanted.  He suggested that I just hadn’t found the right ED yet to make me happy.  (He’s perfectly happy in emergency medicine by the way)  More recently, he’s started to see how serious this actually is.  He can see how my mood changes when I have to work, how it is affecting my appetite and my energy.  I have even shed tears before having to go to a shift because I’m so unhappy.  He is completely supportive and now just wants me to be happy, but I know that he worries about our debt- and I do too. If it wasn’t for that, I would have left medicine already, but I am getting to the point now that I am realizing that life is too short to sacrifice this much happiness and fulfillment.  Sooner or later I’m going to have to have faith that we will find a way to pay the debt, but I just need to live my life the way that I need to.  

Now that we are settled in a home and out of residency, we are starting to think about starting a family- and beyond the fact that I’m unhappy in my job, I just can’t see anyway that I could be involved with my family the way that I want to be while both of us work these long and ever-changing hours.  My husband is starting to realize that as well.  The line that someone posted about being two flowers with no gardener is so true for us.  We both work hard.  We are both tired on our days off and don’t feel like we should have to spend them doing any of life’s other responsibilities like housework, cooking, etc-  what I have come to realize is that I would love nothing more than to be the gardener for us.  I can’t stop thinking about how I would love to be able to devote all of my energy to our home and our family and keeping our lives healthy and balanced.  These are arguably the most important things in life and I wish that I had realized that sooner, but what’s done is done.  Time to find a way to move on.

Thank you all so much for providing this forum for me to say what I have been dying to say and get it out.  We all know that these can be very taboo topics for female docs, but I feel better just knowing that other women are in the same boat.

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should”

[This is a guest post]

Only you know what you want out of life. I would only offer a cautionary tale because I was 25 when I decided to go to med school, because I thought I would like primary care, helping people, and being a doctor. I was unmarried at the time and didn’t feel like my work as a yoga instructor was quite “enough” to satisfy the critical voice in my head that said I should be doing more with my life. 

So I did the 2 years of prereq classes, took the MCAT, got into med school, graduated with an MD, did a year of ER residency, discovered that was more than I could handle, then switched to FM. I am a PGY 3 now with 2 years left to go and I am leaving medicine for good. That’s right, after all that, I’m putting in my 30 days tomorrow. Now let me try to explain why.

At 25 I thought medicine would be a good job for me because I could do it part time and hopefully get married and have kids at some point, though the man and the kids were not in the picture when I started this journey. I gravity of what I was doing didn’t dawn on me til much, much later, after I met the man (a surgeon, then resident, now attending), got married, got pregnant, became a mom, then got pregnant a second time and realized I was in way over my head. It’s not as easy to work part time when you’re done as it seems, that is, and still make enough money to cover malpractice insurance, overhead, etc. But that’s not the most difficult part. Medicine (at least for me) takes the very best I have to give. The patients, with their never-ending litany of complaints, are challenging. Especially since so many of the chronic diseases so prevalent in our country are so improved by things like diet changes, exercise—things 99% of my patients are simply unwilling to do. So it’s frustrating. To say the least. 

Yes, there are good days. I’ve even saved a few lives here an there. I’ve for sure helped people; I take my job seriously and I work hard for my patients. Some of them I really, really care about and I will miss. But the toll it’s taking on my family is too great. I work a minimum of sixty hours a week, sometimes its’ seventy, eighty, the max has been 110. You cannot imagine the toll this takes on you, your loved ones, your children. My daughter lives at her Grandma’s and cries when I take her home. My husband and I are on the brink of divorce. We are, in the words of Carrie Fisher, two flowers, no gardener.  No one is minding the relationship, the home or the life. Something has to give. 

I signed up for this. I wanted this at one point, however whimsical and uninformed I was when I started. People tried to tell me how hard it would be, but in truth I don’t think you really get it until you experience it yourself. 

The brutal part of it is that I don’t see the lives of my female attendings getting better. They work hard, really hard. They make all kinds of sacrifices for their job. Some seem happy. Others don’t. It depends on how badly you want this life. But I can tell you one thing: I did not dream of being a doctor as a little girl. My family is full of physicians, so the absence of the dream cannot be attributed to lack of exposure. I wanted to be a writer, a dancer, a mom. I still do! What I’ve learned at 33 is that I’m the same girl I was then—it’s just taken me this long to “be okay” with who I am and what I want out of life. There’s a saying my husband likes to offer: “just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” Truer words for me were never spoken. I am smart, diligent, hard working, sensitive, a good listener. I am a very good resident and would probably make a good attending. I would probably help a lot of people. But at the cost of myself and who I’m truly meant to be.

So I’m moving on from medicine. It’s taboo, practically forbidden to discuss let alone act on. It’s taken me years to come to this, but it’s time. Looking back, I’m not sorry I did all I did to get here, but if I could talk to my 25 year old self, I’d beg her to work more on self-acceptance and let go of the fierce need to prove to the world that I was good enough.

I don’t know if that helps you. It’s just my story. Best of luck, whatever you decide:) 

ShivysMom78

“For my son”

[This is a guest post]

I have been out of medicine for nearly 2 years. Had my daughter in 2010, was VERY part time. My non-MD hubby suggested I stay home, enjoy her after working so hard for some many years.  Then, I had my son in 2011, and he has HLHS.  Am not working in order to care for him and enjoy him as his condition requires numerous palliative surgeries.  Not sure when I’ll be back,  but I do miss it. 

“A good balance between mom and physician but hoping to make it better”

[This is a guest post]

Hi everyone,

So many of the stories here touch me personally. I am a Internist who came out of residency wanting to build an outpatient practice and focus on preventive care. But taking that road would mean seeing 20-30 complex patients everday , with income not worth the time and emotional energy spent, so I decided to go part time. I crafted a parttime arrangement with an outpt practice at first but it was at a county facility that saw mostly chronic pain patients, so I got out of that and lo and behold started locums work as a hospitalist( something I never thought I would do). I did this for 3 years, the work was not exactly what I had envisioned for my career but it gave me a lot of flexibility and during this time I had my first child.

My intention when I started as a hospitalist at this hospital was to work part time here until I found something I liked enough to do full time . Well 5 years later , I am now an employee with the hospitalist group I was doing locums work for. I am still part time and have flexibility in designing my schedule on a month to month basis which gives me time with my son which really is the most important thing to me. Hospitalist work in this day and age is becoming very emotionally and physically draining. The days I work pass by in a blur with little time for my family and constantly trying to find a way to get home in time for dinner with my son, but the days I am off are really nice to catch up on life.Lately I do feel like I want to get off this roller coaster and design a better life, maybe try to start an internet business or start a completely new career outside of medicine.

“A bitter pill to swallow?”

[This is a guest post]

My story is so similar to others here. I left my job, that I loved, as a pediatrician 10 years ago. I had worked hard to be the superhero employee and mom (and she cooks a great lassagna) and held up great for years. Eventually, with two kids in school and an unbelievably busy job, I was exhausted. My husband (now ex) was a very busy research doctor who traveled constantly.

Long story short, I’m now 56, divorced and need a job. My youngest child just turned 18. Getting back into medicine is prohibitively expensive and the route is unclear. My biggest problem is how demoralized I am. I once had it all.

It is so good to read the stories here. Thank you for this blog.

Carol Kennon

Albuquerque, NM

What sustains one working physician mom - The rhythm of my days

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I’m one month into my redesigned life as a physician mom and simultaneous physician business owner who traded in a nanny for an online business manager. As each day passes, I feel myself reaching out more and more to touch and stroke the textures of my life.

There is the start to the morning – a brief lie-in as I catch the news headlines and drink the welcome cup of tea brought to my bedside by my dear husband who knows I can’t open my eyes until that first sip. As I lie enshrouded in semi-sleep and the warmth of the winter sheets, I keep hoping my eight-year-old daughter will join me, as she used to. But her re-energized body is eager for the day and she has bounded downstairs to raid the pantry, hoping I won’t notice the Oreo crumbs later.

A quick scan of my e-mail lets me know if any of the day’s plans have changed, or if there’s pending excitement – a new introduction? A potential new client? A new networking opportunity?

Downstairs, as I prepare breakfast, I glance at the cat stretched out in the small patch of sunshine that spills through the sliding door. I hear the crinkle of the newspaper and the tap of my husband’s spoon in his cereal bowl as he multitasks, both eating and reading. My Energizer Bunny is practicing cartwheels or trying on the new blond wig that came in the mail yesterday.

Suddenly, my house is quiet. The office stands at the ready with its papers, scheduler, multicolored calendar, folders and glowing computer screen. My glasses rest quietly by my keyboard, waiting for me – I’m darned if I can recall the moment when they became indispensable!

Many hours later, a notice pops up on my screen letting me know it’s that time – time to pick my daughter up from school. Time for that moment I’ve been yearning for, for the last year, and am now privileged to enjoy. And there’s no wiggle room. No last-minute quick phone call or dashed-off e-mail. She’ll be standing outside, hopping on one leg or swinging her school bag, waiting for me 15 minutes from now.

As the early wintry dusk closes in, and the heater thumps into life, I stand at the kitchen island preparing evening salads, listening to my daughter’s tuneless humming and watching her tongue angle its way across her lips as she bestows her fierce concentration on homework.

Oops - there goes a cartwheel between subjects. And then I hear the magic words “Mommy, did I tell you about …?”

This precious moment is why I no longer desire outside help!