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.
