Aug
11
2010
If you make the effort even while you are busy working to strike a balance between medical work and the rest of life then you will have a positive advantage over those who devote all their waking hours to Medicine only.
Even though you may imagine that you will be working as a doctor until you reach retirement age there may be other reasons why you decide to leave the profession. Some of these such as ill-health may not be chosen by you at all. Or you may reach a time in your life when you want to explore other ways to live and so decide to move out of your medical employment.
Whatever the reasons for leaving, when the time comes to leave Medicine you will have lots of possibilities of what you can do instead if you have kept interested in other activities even while you were busy with your medical career. If, on the other hand you have no other interests then you may find that leaving the profession is a huge transition to make because you have to deal with not only the emotional impact of retiring but also the sense of emptiness of losing such a big part of you daily life.
This is why it is so important to manage your time effectively however busy you are and to make space for interests apart from work.
What sort of activities would be good to pursue as a way to balance the stress of Medicine?
This very much depends on you and what you enjoy doing. You may want to be creative and so spend time drawing, painting, sculpting, making things from wood or clay.
If you enjoy musical pursuits then perhaps playing a musical instrument on your own or as part of a band or orchestra. Some people love singing and so join a choir, or acting in local dramatic groups.
For others photography or gardening is something that they can do regularly and takes their mind away from medical issues for a few hours.
If you want to improve your fitness you can swim regularly, walk in the open air or run marathons, whichever appeals to you.
Keep in touch with family and friends too because once you retire you may find that the connection with work colleagues lessens when you no longer have that link with them.
Don’t forget too to be somewhat involved with your local communities by getting to know your neighbours and being aware of local activities.
Jul
27
2010
Unfortunately, when doctors decide to leave the medical profession they become extremely fed up and regret their decision to leave. This could be related to missing their colleagues and also a reaction to the loss of the regular routines of work.
You could become even more frustrated when you decide to leave medicine if you do the following:
- Leave medicine without any idea of what you could do instead.
Although you may believe that you will automatically know what you want to do and how you want to spend your days when you are no longer working as a doctor, you may find that if you have not made any particular plans that you waste a huge amount of time and become increasingly fed up with not really knowing which way to go or how to spend your day and you may even wish that you were back in your previously busy life as a doctor.
However vague are your plans for your life after medicine it’s better to have some than none. Without it any plans at all you are highly likely to become more and more fed up as time goes by.
- Only mix with other medical people.
Your work as a doctor is taken up so much of your time until you left the profession and you always find plenty to talk about with other doctors, so that you are probably naturally drawn to maintaining friendships and forming new friendships with other medical people. However once you leave medicine, if you really don’t want to become fed up as a result it is hugely important to widen your circle of friends and become interested in other things apart from medicine.
- Be glad that you have been entirely and only focused on your medical career.
Once you have left medicine and you are exploring other ways to spend your days and then it’s the sure you will feel more and more fed up if all you are interested in doing things connected with medicine. Of course there is nothing wrong with that in itself but it is a formula for becoming fed up and missing your profession.
- Don’t have any outside interests and hobbies.
When you’ve left the medical profession and wonder what to do next you may find there is a huge void in your life if you have never made the time to follow some hobbies or other outside interests. You really will feel extremely fed up because of the void that this will have created in you.
Jul
9
2010
Big decisions such as deciding to leave the medical profession can be difficult to make and it’s a common experience that you deliberate for ages weighing up the pros and cons of doing something or not doing it.
Some people never get beyond the deliberation and never come to any conclusion.
Others decide very quickly and may later come to regret their choice and wish they had done it differently.
For me the process I went through when I decided that I wanted to leave Medicine was a combination of the above: a long time of weighing up pros and cons and ‘what ifs’ and then finally a ‘yes I’ll go for it.’ Fortunately for me I have not regretted that choice I made but I have learned some lessons during the process.
Lesson 1: How I would have done it differently:
I would have made the final decision much more quickly. With hindsight I was too worried about what I would do instead and how I would fill the time freed up by no longer working in Medicine, that I delayed the final moment of resigning.
Lesson 2: You may not know what your new life will bring but be open to possibilities:
Since we cannot see into the future even though we sometimes think we can, knowing what will actually happen isn’t possible. However when you go into the new adventure with an open mind and are willing to explore new paths then exciting things can start to happen.
Lesson 3: Be practical and realistic about certain things:
If you leave medicine to follow a long held dream of doing something completely different be realistic about your life and especially your financial commitments.
Working as a doctor brings you a decent salary so before you pack it all in be practical about how you will pay your bills. You may need to have a transition time while you change your life, or may work out a way to adapt your medical working life to be more pleasant while also giving you the time to follow your other interests too.
Lesson 4: Expect some opposition to your decision to leave Medicine:
Other people will envy your choice and so may react to you with anger or resentment that you have made the choice that they would like to have done. You have to become impervious to comments that you are making a big mistake by leaving the profession.
Coaching enables you to make your decision more quickly and supports you while you are in transition. Find out more here.
Jun
6
2010
Have you ever wished you might never have to cope with the intricacies of Medicine any more?
Not so much the patients themselves or even the mental challenge of taking their history, dong the examination, arranging appropriate investigations and deciding on the best treatment, but more the aggravation of too much to do in the day, the lack of co-operation from others, the demands made of you, all add up to make you wonder if you really want to carry on for years more.
The dilemma is this: do you really want to give it all up, pack it all in and if so for what? Do you really want to let go of all those years of specialised training and start again with something entirely different and new?
Whatever your age, if you decide that you’ve had enough and are moving towards the decision to leave Medicine then you must also decide what to do instead. However attractive it may seem to ‘do nothing’, you may well find the change from a hectic life as a doctor to doing nothing too big a crossing to make.
So before you take the plunge and decide to leave the profession think carefully about what you really would like to have done instead or what you now wold like to spend your days engaged in doing.
Examine practical issues such as whether or not you are able to have a pension and how much you need to earn to maintain the lifestyle you want.
You may find that what you want to do has little relation to your life as a doctor. Don’t worry about this because you have all sorts of transferable skills you may not be very aware of such as being able to retain a lot of information, excellent communication and reasoning skills. Any o all of these will be useful whatever you decide to do.
So you make a choice to leave Medicine, and know what you want to do instead. But you are still procrastinating. Be clear about what’s stopping you taking that step and how you can overcome those obstacles to the life you truly want. You may find that many of the objections or challenges are in your mind rather than actually real obstacles. They may be based on the fear of change or the thought of upsetting other people.
Get your facts right, change your beliefs about the consequences of what you plan and then just do it.
May
31
2010
When I decided it was time for me to retire early and do something else apart from Medicine I spent many hours wondering whether all those years had been wasted and whether I had any transferable skills i could use in my new life after Medicine. I was particularly anxious to know if my excellent intra-uterine device fitting ability would be useful in my new life! (I haven’t yet reached a conclusion about that one!)
The lessons I learned were:
1.It can be a challenge to throw away your identity especially if it is connected with a profession such as Medicine. There are expectations put on you by others as well as the expectations you put on yourself in relation to your knowledge of all things medical.
2.There is a life after Medicine. When I was working as a doctor I strongly believed that there could not be any life with much interest away from the medical profession. However I have learned that there are many other things you can do which are equally satisfying and interesting.
3.There is a danger of both lessons 1 and 2 when you don’t allow yourself any space or time to pursue any out of work interests. Some people say that Medicine is like a hungry monster which eats you up. This can certainly seem true when you allow it to take over your life.
4.You have certain innate abilities if you have worked as a doctor: you can gather evidence from what you see, what you hear and what you touch. You can process this and come to some conclusion about what a problem might be, how it could be solved and what needs to be done to achieve this. So you are very good at problem solving.
5.You are able to get things done, though a danger here is a resistance of delegating or asking for help from others since you believe you are the only one who has the required skills and anyway it will be so much quicker if you do something than having to explain it to someone else.
6.You are able to adapt to new situations and can learn new skills quickly so long as someone takes the time to explain what to do and shows you how to do it. Helpful too if they provide a manual with the details.
So if you want a life after Medicine go and get it!
Mar
26
2010
Maybe you have decided it is time to retire from your professional life in Medicine and are wondering what life will be like for you when you do so. As a busy doctor you will have been used to a very hectic and full working day. There were always things to be done, targets and deadlines to be met, and reports to be written all to be fitted in between the demands of patients in clinics, of other staff continuously and of your family who complained they never saw you.
How will you manage without the daily pressures of such a high powered job? Perhaps the demands made of you and the pressure you felt were also an excuse not to have to sit down, relax and reflect? Maybe for some of you that lifestyle had the advantage of not allowing you any time to deal with other things going on in your personal life.
But now you are about to leave all of that behind you and may be feeling a bit apprehensive about what it will be like not to have so much going on.
However, retirement is a time to slow down and to realise there are things all around you which are beautiful and wonderful. For years you may not have noticed these because you’ve been too engrossed in the demands of your day to day activities connected with your work.
Now is the time to stop rushing.Make sure you spend some time each day walking outside, stretching and do some regular exercise such as yoga, or swimming.
Looking after your body, mind and spirit will make your heart sing again.
Take a deep breath and breathe out slowly and look around you. Appreciate your surroundings and see the changes the seasons bring. Start to notice things you usually hurry past. See the sunrise. Watch the sunset over the sea. Look at insects on a flower. Smell the perfume of a rose. When you connect with nature in this way your heart will be full of joy again and your energy will soar. You will gain clarity about all the new and exciting things you can now do and begin to find the energy and motivation to get started and find the life you want after Medicine. You will use your new energy to clarify the vision of what you want and then set achievable goals so that you move forward into that new life.
Feb
19
2010
1. Make your mind up if you want break away from all things medical or if you want to continue working as a doctor after you retire but in a different way? If so are you considering doing a locum for your own job, perhaps working less hours, or doing something different though medical such as education or journalism, television advisor or ship’s doctor? What extra training and/or qualifications would you need? You could consider volunteering for example going abroad to offer medical help in disaster areas.
2. Decide whether you need to earn more than your pension for the lifestyle you want after retirement. If you’ve invested wisely you will have enough savings and income to follow your dreams and do whatever it is that you’ve ‘always wanted to do’ or regretted giving up when you had other pressures in life.
3. Many doctors find their creativity has been suppressed for years so whatever you decide, plan to do something creative too. You might want to try painting, sculpture, joining a choir, learning to play an instrument or something exotic such as belly-dancing or drumming.
4. Keep yourself fit and well for as long as possible. Look after your body and mind by eating well and healthily, Stretch your body and mind by taking regular exercise and keeping your brain active with curiosity, reading and learning. How about an Open University course or joining your local adult education centre? Have you wanted to see other parts of the world? Retiring gives you the chance to take off alone, with friends or partner, with a group or as part of a charity challenge.
5. Don’t fritter away the days by doing nothing. Although you will have said goodbye to the stress of medical work, and retirement is a time for taking things easy, but to get new projects completed you must set goals, manage your time well and take action. Stop talking about what you really want to do, make your mind up about what is really important for you now and then take the action needed to get it done. Retirement is not the end of the road: it’s an opportunity for a new beginning!
Jan
24
2010
Join the new Facebook group: Life After Medicine and join in the discussion to share your experiences and challenges of leaving medicine or your thoughts when you contemplate leaving the profession.
Susan Kersley
Create your badge
