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.
“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.
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.”
Can you ever go back?
[This is a guest post]
“I’m so glad to find this website. I thought that I was one of only a handful of women who “took the leap” to stay at home. I finished residency 18 months ago and have been at home with my toddler since then. I was so tired when I finished, I couldn’t imagine going full-time. Part-time work has been harder to find than I thought, and now, I’m increasingly being told that if I don’t do something, anything, I may never be hired. Has anyone out there successfully gone back to clinical practice after being at home for awhile? I miss seeing patients, but I don’t want to want to miss these early years with my son.”
Options??
[This is a guest post]
“I have lived my entire life to be a hand surgeon. Now that I’m here, I feel burned out and apathetic. Rare is the patient I feel I’ve really helped. So many are chronic pain patients and worker’s compensation patients that don’t want to go back to work.
I left my first practice for a number of reasons and just started my second. I’m now on call for 2 hospitals when I’d rather never set foot in one again.
With decreasing reimbursement and increasing costs, I feel I don’t have the time to give my patients the quality they deserve and the time necessary to avoid missing something. I also feel I can’t take time off. My husband and I want to have children, but the clock is ticking and I’m buried in student loans.
I would love a more flexible schedule, but need to maintain my income for now. What options do I have?”
Any advice for an aspiring woman physician?
[This is a guest post]
I am a 24 year old woman, who despite the odds stacked against me is willing to “risk it all” and pursue a career in medicine. I have a BA in Math and an unremarkable undergrad GPA. I thought about other career paths, but medicine is where my passion lies. I am deeply passionate about public health and primary care. I have lofty ambitions of research, and advocacy…but before I get ahead of myself I still have 2 years of prerequisites, the MCAT, and probably multiple application cycles before being admitted. I’ve crunched the numbers and at the most optimistic I will be very nearly 40 by the time I’m finished with residency (and fellowships, if I’m extra ambitious).
(Source)
I feel the image of myself being a young mother slipping away, and I’m starting to realize that maybe that’s OK.
I would appreciate any feedback/advice for someone starting out from this network of women physicians.
Thank you for your time, and my apologies if this post is too off-topic. You can reach me at publichealthroll [at] gmail [dot] com.
FRUSTRATED OB
[This is a guest post]
“I’ll make this quick because I know we all have other things we need to do BUT I have got to get this off of my chest! I am really angry and frustrated that I have almost no professional satisfaction despite putting in so much time and effort to get to this point!
We work so hard to become established docs in our communities. I didn’t marry and have children until I was 38. Now, I absolutely dread going to work. Don’t get me wrong. I love practicing medicine. I still love women’s health. It’s HOW I do it that I don’t love at all. I’m in a group practice. I’m all about working smarter and not harder but I’m in the minority.
Briefly, the partners do not agree on how to run this practice. I had thought a group practice would be better for me as far as my personal life, but I’m learning a hard lesson that it doesn’t seem to be so. And I won’t even go into the decline in reimbursement and increase in liability.
I don’t want to leave OB/GYN completely, but I’m having a hard time reconciling it with my family life (and I know I’m not the only one). Short of starting my own solo practice (which is a whole different issue), I don’t feel that I have many other options. Whew! Thanks for letting me share.”
“IMG in NV trying to fit in USA life style”
[This is a guest post]
“Hi :
I am a 42 year old Radiologist (since 1998) who 5 years ago immigrated from South America to USA (my husband was transferred), mom of a beautiful and smart 11 years old girl. I had obligatory quit my job as a MD for obvious reasons. Actually dealing with so much stress because I decided to take my USMLE Tests to get my license here, but after 20 years I earned my bachelor degree (1990) it is kind of steep for me…even though I keep working hard everyday .Sometimes a huge question attack my thoughts …because, I am considered an old IMG (international medical graduate - PK addition), what else can I do if I can’t get into a residency? I can’t find any clear answer to this specific question, could you help me to find out if there is any light after this tunnel?. I really do appreciate it.
Thanks”
