Women Leaving Medicine

My Story of Leaving Medicine 10 years ago

[This is a guest post]

“Well,  this may be more that any of you want to know.

I am a 52 year gastroenterologist, married to a gastroenterologist, who chose to be a full time mom 10 years ago when my daughter was 10 and my son 8 years old.  My son was accepting of our chaotic life, but our daughter was not.  She was miserable and had grown up never knowing when we’d be home, who would feed her dinner or take her to swimming or piano lessons or worse—who would tuck her in to bed.

I began to imagine that if something happened to us, our children would have only known us  like this—would have only known this life.  I tried getting rid of the nanny and cutting back but trying to pick up your second  and fourth grader on time when your cases are delayed, or referring physicians are angry because this patient only wanted a woman and you are leaving at 3 pm —well it became unbearable.  Additionally, my practice changed.  All the emergent straightforward cases with fun procedures went to my partners because they were available and I began to have only chronic difficult cases that would wait months to see me.  Everyday I brought work home to finish after the kids went to bed.

My husband and I spent a month getting up at 4:30 am with a pot of coffee trying to figure out the best solution.

Move? Join a bigger group with less call in a larger city?  Go back to a clinic position in academics?  We loved where we lived, the practice we had started was growing and very successful—what to do?

We felt we had to get our family in line, before our daughter got any older.  My husband is and was very supportive but when I suggested job sharing, he made it clear that he’d had 10 years of weekends home alone with the kids when I was on call and he was NOT spending any more time at home.  He used to say when I was on call ” Hey —that’s my patient anyway— I’ll just go in”……  

So, I quit at 42 years old.   It was a shock, but the kids were appreciative and happy.  Our life changed dramatically.

Our daughter changed , our marriage got better, we began to live and it was the right decision for us.

I kept my privileges and malpractice for two years, but we knew within three months this was right and I would stay home until they left for college.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t feel remorse.  There are feelings of isolation from what you know and what you’ve earned.  People are bombarding you with their judgements of wasting space in medical school or wasting knowledge.  I simply said, “Well patients can find another doctor, my kids can’t find another mother.”

Our kids, at 18 and 20, still tell me they are glad I stayed home with them.

This, of course, raises all kinds of future conflict for them.  They both want to have 3 or 4 children and be a huge part of their children’s lives.  Our daughter is in college in pre-med and her brother wants to do research.   She (actually both of them) could probably teach a course on women’s issues and decision making with all the time we’ve spent on this topic.  In a nutshell, we talk about being realistic with the field you pick, the contract you sign, the city you live in and its resources,  the spouse you marry and their work and children expectations, maybe not living where you want, but to be near extended family (that you get along with),and not over extending yourself like both my husband and I did.  

Our daughter hated every nanny we had—- so this will be interesting, unless, her husband stays home :-)

As for me, it will be 20 years since my GI boards and I am letting them lapse.  I have thought about multiple medical and nonmedical career options.  Re-entry programs are becoming more and more popular.

But it’s hard—I’ve grown accustomed to being home and having 10 teenagers just show up.

I love having one of our kids call me on a whim and want to meet for lunch.    I have three golden retrievers that I walk every day—and it is soulful.

My husband loves having me home, taking care of everything in our lives and it’s calm and organized.  We’ve lived the other. He cringes at the thought of it just being the two of us and having to deal with a second work schedule again.

I look back and see options that we could have tried, but that too can go on forever.  

So it’s about trying to make it work as much as you can and then deciding what you need out of your own life.”