The following sums up neatly misconceptions about life after medicine.
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A Life After Medicine: Retirement Options for Doctors | medmonthly …
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Identity crisis: Who are you if you leave the medical profession?
What's new on your horizon of life now?
Presenting symptoms: Lack of clarity about personal identity.
History: Since becoming a doctor you have taken on the identity of that profession 100%.
So much so that you sometimes find yourself wondering who you are without the label, and who you will be if you are made redundant or decide to retire or leave your job.
On examination: You worry and wonder who you would be if this decision was forced on you: for example if you had to take early retirement on the grounds of ill health or decided to leave because you don’t enjoy the medical work you do and would really rather be doing something else.
Because you are so busy with your work related activities you have no time to do anything except, work and study.
This adds to your already stressful life.
Your colleagues are of little help as there is a culture of ‘grin and bear it’ and ‘why worry about things which may never happen’ or ‘you are too old to change’ or ‘you are too young to retire.’
But you DO worry. And a major concern is you wonder what the answer is to the question:
’Who am I?’ and the answer keeps coming back ‘I am a doctor.’
Diagnosis: Lack of Clarity of personal identity
What do you need to do to complete your personal jigsaw?
Treatment: Prescription for Change:
Listen to yourself when you introduce yourself to someone you’ve just met.
What do you tell? What do you not tell? What is the reason for your choice?
Do you tell what you do for a living, where you live, how old you are, your marital status, or not; if you have any children or not.
What else……?
Perhaps you tell someone about your hobbies and perhaps say something like: ‘I’d do that if only I had time….!’ or ‘I’ll do that when I retire’ but isn’t life for living NOW?
What do you not tell? What is it about you that you imagine may affect the way the listener regards you?
Have you ever played the icebreaker game: tell the group ‘a little known fact about yourself’ What do you reveal? What do you not tell?
Does what you say about yourself, give the listener a sense of your values, of what you feel passionately about, what you love to do?
What IS most important in YOUR life?
Next time someone says to you: tell me a bit about yourself…. start with what you value most, what is the most important thing for you.
Let your true self shine.
Let go of what you no longer want in your life
“He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” -Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“This above all; to thine own self be true.” -William Shakespeare
Somedays you may be so fed up with the overwork and stress of medical work and be seriously considering leaving medicine. Yet leaving the medical profession is not as straightforward as it might seem.
To leave Medicine you have to come to terms with leaving a profession in which you have had challenges to overcome in relation to:
Often these aspects of life may have been discarded and most of your time and energy devoted to getting the work done in the wards and clinics and the mental gymnastics trying to work out the ins and outs of the patients’ diagnoses.
So if you make the decision to leave there will be other and new challenges:
Missing the challenges of your working life.
Suddenly when you stop working in medicine all those challenges of being a doctor will disappear and may leave a hole in your life. Much as you hated them they occupied your time and energy each day.
Yet when you leave the profession you have to decide how to fill that gap with more pleasurable activities.
Not having the same intellectual problems to solve
Being a doctor keeps your brain working well. In spite of advances in technology you still have the intellectual stimulation of dealing with a patient with a problem and working out the best way to treat them. When you no longer work as a doctor you need to find something to replace this mental stimulation. Would Sudoko fill the gap for you? What could you be involved in which will exercise you brain and keep it active? No more excuses for avoiding doing some situations It could be that you’ve used the excuse of being so busy to avoid taking part in some social situations and activities, even though you’ve expressed regret at not being available to take part.
When you suddenly have more time you no longer have those excuses and may have to face up to the challenge of being more involved with family, friends, partner and your community. Getting used to not ‘being a doctor’ others continue to think of you as a doctor and if you want to shed this label it can be a challenge to persuade others that you are no longer part of the medical profession.
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Want some coaching to enable you to decide the path to take and whether or not to leave Medicine? Coaching can help.
It took me more than twelve years before I was able to write the book ‘Life After Medicine – how to have a trouble-free transition.’ If you are either thinking about Life After Medicine or have left Medicine and wonder if you made a big mistake then You might find something useful in it if you haven’t read it.
There does seem to be something about going through medical school and working as a doctor that gets ‘under your skin’ even if that has inevitably become very thick, and as a result it can take some time to grow a new skin and a new identity too.
Any journey of change that you take in life can have similar effects. Most common is the voice which says to you, either from inside your own head or from the mouths of your nearest and dearest, ‘You’ve made a mistake, you shouldn’t have given up.’
There are likely to be some regrets about doing what you did and wishing you could turn the clock back: I certainly had moments too when I wondered if I’d made a big mistake. But you can’t turn the clock back: you have become a different person once you made that change and took the first step. so it wouldn’t be the same. if you went back to what you left behind.
Some people do go back and with the benefit of their learning change things to suit their new identity. However there must have been a strong reason for you to have taken that step away from your life into a new life so what you meed to do now is this:
Think about what you remember about working in Medicine and what it is you regret about leaving the profession. Then find ways you can take the essence of those things into your present situation. For example if you enjoyed interacting with patients and finding out what you could do to help make a diagnosis and treatment then discover how you could solve people’s problems in your present work instead.
Consider too all those things which you hated about being a doctor and notice how much better you are without them in your life. Perhaps now you can enjoy a full night’s sleep and can organise your leisure time more consistently. You made or are making a decision to leave for several reasons, if you go back to that life those negative associations will still be there unless you have become crystal clear about how you can avoid them now.
Is there Life After Medicine mp3
Doctors thinking of leaving medicine may wonder if they will be bored when they no longer have the daily stimulus of solving medical problems and challenges of difficult patients. This combined with the a common misconception amongst doctors that a Life after Medicine will be dull, lifeless, uneventful, uninteresting and unexciting. No wonder so many of you prefer to stay in the profession than explore and experience the alternative. If you are thinking about leaving the medical profession and wondering if these things will apply to you then be re-assured that there are many opportunities available to you that there truly is a good life after Medicine, if you are determined to make it so.
Here are some things to help you decide whether or not it’s time to move on from your life as a doctor: this may be related also on whether you are near to planned retirement or because you have to or want to leave the profession for other reasons)
Decide what you want
When you know what your desired outcome is you will be more likely to achieve it. Set precise goals which are time related and make a plan of action so you can move towards it.
Work out a plan for achieving this
If you know what you want but aren’t taking the desired action then you may be gaining a positive benefit from not achieving. Work out what the positives are for you in staying where you are and also precisely what you need to make the changes you want to happen.
Be creative
Thinking of your objections for achieving what you say you want, ask yourself if these are really true and if not then rephrase them to be more positive and think of new ways you could achieve them.
Be open to new possibilities
When you leave the medical profession you have a lot of transferable skills such as being a good communicator or a thorough knowledge of illness and health. Think of new ways you could use these in your life after medicine.
Look around and find out what others are doing
Others have done it so you can be motivated and inspired by others who succeeded in their Life After Medicine.
Look after your own health and well-being
Whatever you decide to do your own health and well-being is paramount. You know what to do.
Move forwards emotionally
When you leave the medical profession move on from regarding yourself as ‘a doctor’ You will become someone with a new identity, even if others insist on referring to you as a medic. FInd out who you are without the stethoscope.
Contact me if you want me to support you during your transition and help you with your decision-making about which path to take: finding out how to make your life in Medicine more bearable, or taking the plunge to find a new life after medicine by indulging yourself in some one to one Coaching
Since I retired from the medical profession and hung up my stethoscope in 1997 I’ve discovered and learned much for which I’m pleased and happy to have had the chance to do. Here is my list of what I’m grateful for.
Living in a beautiful place.
Every morning I look out of the window and see the sky and the sea. I love being able to walk on the cliffs and connect with nature every day.
What are you grateful about the place where you live? Where would you ideally like to live?
Enjoying seeing my family and friends.
I have a supportive family and friends and appreciate their support and love. Even when we are geographically far apart thanks to technical ways such as email and Skype we can keep in touch regularly.
Training and working as a Life Coach
I discovered a way to find the satisfaction I used to have from working as a doctor when I became a life coach. What will you do instead of Medicine?
Writing and having books and articles published.
I never had much time to write while working as a doctor and bringing up my children. However once I left medicine I discovered the joys of writing, especially non-fiction. I have enjoyed years of writing personal development books for doctors and hundreds of articles for anyone interested in changing their life to be the way they want it to be. One of these days my intention is to complete the unfinished novels!
Being able to use computers.
When I was growing up computers were massive things which only highly technical people could use. Now anyone can and the world opens up.
I love the technology stuff and am amaze how much simpler life can be in relation to communication. So much is possible that I couldn’t have dreamed of years ago. Of course sitting in front of a computer and surfing the internet can be a time-waster but it’s also a great source of information and learning.
Being able to set up simple web sites
I was always rather daunted by the huge fees demanded for construction of web sites by professionals and so for many years had rather home-made sites using FrontPage. Then I changed from PC to Mac and needed to find an alternative for web site construction.
Since I discovered Word-Press as a way to set up and manage web sites I’ve had lots of fun doing this and learning new things every day.
What goes on your list? Let me know with a comment below.
I can help you have a smooth transition with coaching.
Find out more HERE.
It’s the start of another week and you have that feeling again of not wanting to go to work. Have you ever wished you might never have to cope with the intricacies of working as a doctor?
Not so much the patients themselves or even the mental challenge of taking their history, doing 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 many more years.
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 what might be stopping you actually leaving might be that you feel that you must also decide what to do instead. However attractive it may seem to ‘do nothing’ you may well find the thought of 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 do. That might be what you would have done if you hadn’t been to medical school or what you might have given up in order to study medicine.
Examine practical issues such as whether or not you will have a pension and how much you need to earn to have the lifestyle you want.
In order to make that life-changing decision to leave the profession, be clear about what you want instead. Of course it’s better if to be as specific as possible yet even recognising what sort of thing you want will all enable you to make the transition smoothly.
Ask yourself what’s in your way to doing what you want to do and instead of remaining stuck in a state of no action, think of as many possibilities for ways to remove those obstacles. Either on your own or with the help of a coach or mentor you may find that many of your perceived obstacles are in fact as a result of your personal belief system which will need to be challenged for you to understand and change.
Life After Medicine