There is a lot of attention floating around on the idea of leaving the healthcare profession for greener pastures at present.
How the shiny lights of the commercial industry and startups are so much brighter and more rewarding than a career in the NHS, that you're practically a fool to stay in the game.
As someone who had a career before medicine, I've got a bit to say about this.
Today I'd like to give you a couple of things to think about if you're on the fence looking with envy at next doors garden...
Life is too short
Enjoyment is important in what you do in life. We've got one life. This is it.
It's got to count. If you're not enjoying it, be that what you do at work, or even outside of work, maybe it is time to look at that and ask yourself, why am I doing this?
Or probably a better question to ask, is how can I find enjoyment in this?
Maybe the most pertinent question of the three is, is there a way I can still find enjoyment in this?
It's easy to point the finger at day-to-day frustrations, and say - it's the system's fault.
But, sometimes you've got to look in the mirror and say, is it the system, or is it me?
If I change jobs, or location, or anything else, will life be that miraculously different and better? Maybe not.
Maybe it is, and perhaps the case is that you simply can't find enjoyment in your job anymore.
Probably because this is no longer the right challenge for you. And that is fair enough.
The headline here is, life is too damn short to do something you don't enjoy.
If you can't find enjoyment in what you spend the majority of time in your limited life doing, then you need to look at that, and yourself, and come up with a better plan.
But don't be so quick to think it's all about the job, especially one in healthcare.
Especially one as a doctor.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
One of the things about people who go into medicine generally is that they've never done anything else, so the unknown can seem very attractive and very lucrative in comparison.
The greener side
I was a computer scientist graduate first, and have about a decade of experience doing something entirely different from medicine at several different companies.
I feel truly lucky to have had this career before I made the switch to medicine.
It was amazing, I enjoyed the challenges, the high-rise office, and the Canary Wharf lifestyle.
Being suited and booted every day in my ridiculously overpriced TM Lewin shirts and ties, Hugo Boss suits, the early starts the late finishes.
Friday night drinks in London with everyone else making a bucket load of money and who could afford to pay £12 a drink (and this was pre-2010!!).
But like most flashy things, the novelty wears off.
It's not all fancy suits and dinners and drinks. I've also sat next to a person on a trading floor who was fired the week before Christmas because he wasn't pulling in enough money. A family man with 4 kids at home, and no doubt a big ol' mortgage for his house on London Bridge. It was like something out of Scrooge, watching HR and security walk up and clear out his desk. That was not a good day.
I've also been told, literally to my face by the head trader to 'come here NOW!' followed by immediately being told to 'F**k off and come back when I'm done on the phone'.
That did not feel good either.
My reasons for changing career to medicine came from within, intrinsic motivation, the truth that what I was doing, what I was achieving with my life, it really didn't matter to me.
And the extra zeroes on my paycheck, whilst nice, didn't really matter either.
And that's where it is.
The Myth or is it actually a Greener Pasture?
For what it is worth, having walked a career outside of the NHS for a decade, and knowing what it is to struggle with purpose, in what you do, day in and out.
It's not a pleasant place to be, mentally or emotionally.
Now I'm in medicine, having a career and life that is dedicated to caring for people is such an amazing, amazing place to be.
I sometimes just break into a smile on the walk home from work because I can't believe I managed to get here. I do this amazing, privileged thing for a job. How did that happen!?
Coming from the ivory towers of the banking sector, with skyline office views and marble-walled toilets, with hand soap and moisturizers at every sink... to the broken smelly staff toilet of A&E where the same chicken penis drawing has been on the wall for the past 7 years was quite a drop, I'm not going to lie about that.
No, being a doctor is not going to make you a millionaire, or probably even rich.
It comes with a lot of public sector inefficiency, red tape, and irritation.
But you're part of a team, with an amazing shared goal. To help one another, to be there for each other. And that is pretty priceless.
What should you do?
A shiny career was lovely. I'll never regret it, nor would I go back to it.
But that's me, and once you see past all the shiny stuff, it's what matters to you and makes you happy that you need to pursue.
Find something you enjoy, something worth living for and getting up for.
It might be just that you've forgotten that is what you already do, and just need a fresh perspective on it.
For me, medicine beats the hell out of a life dedicated to ultimately making an already rich person even richer, as you would do in most other careers and companies.
So at the end of the day, stay in medicine or leave it, the only person who can make that decision is you. But it ain't all bells and whistles on the other side. I promise you that.
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