I don’t think I want to be a doctor anymore.

I showed up one evening at the family shelter clinic where I volunteered once a week and told the medical director, “I’ve decided to quit my job. I don’t think I was meant to be a doctor. Maybe I’ll look into something else to do with my life.” 

I was less than a year out of pediatric residency and working in an established private pediatric practice in my hometown. It was my goal to take any job I could get that would bring me back home, so I joined a practice that catered to the rich and famous, already knowing that it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be doing as a pediatrician. 

So, each Thursday evening, after spending the week feeling like an impostor, struggling to meet the expectations of a privileged population of parents on one side of town, I would drive into the city to volunteer my time at Community of Hope Clinic. There, I would work alongside a team of compassionate and dedicated men and women who cared just as much for each other as they did for the impoverished families that showed up at their clinic. 

That evening, after I told the medical director of my intention to leave medicine altogether, he looked at me with compassion and wisdom. He told me that I had invested so much of my life, time, and money into becoming a physician that throwing it all away because my first job didn’t work out was foolish. 

He had his own story to tell me about trying to live up to his own expectations as a small-town family doc in rural Minnesota and burning out. He told me how he had found his true calling at Community of Hope and that I, too, would find the place that was right for me. Just because the first place, or second or third place doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean you weren’t meant to be a doctor. 

I followed my mentor’s wise advice. I left that first job after only one year but didn’t leave medicine altogether. I found a position at a children’s hospital where I discovered my passion for teaching residents in community settings using multi-disciplinary team models. I cultivated that passion through 6 more job changes in 3 different countries and 3 different states. 

So many of my coaching clients feel frustrated, burned out, and overwhelmed because they work in broken systems which they don’t have the power to fix. They try to do everything they can to make things better despite many factors being completely out of their control. Sometimes, they get so discouraged that they consider leaving medicine altogether. 

But maybe, like me, they’re misplaced and just haven’t found their passion. Maybe they’ve been following the pathway which was given to them many years ago by someone else without stopping to consider that it might not be their path at all. Maybe they are in the right place, but don’t know what to let go of and what to ask for to make their jobs more fulfilling. 

I believe we all need to take the time to examine our life experiences and discover what truly brings us to life - our true passions. For the majority of us, that discovery will not lead us away from medicine completely, but it will take us in directions which we never thought were possible in the past. 

Individual coaching or attending a physician retreat could be a great first step in that journey. 

With compassion,

-Dr. Joe