Should you stay or leave medicine?

"I left my primary care practice earlier this year to focus on life coaching. Why did I leave? Because I wanted to do more and make a bigger impact. I remember how eager I was to complete medical training as I approached the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought I could finally relax and enjoy life as an attending after all the delayed gratification from becoming a doctor. All I ever wanted was to help people feel better and live a life of ease myself.

However, I was disappointed and frustrated by our broken health care system and how care coordination could impact patient outcomes negatively. Working as a PCP in the pandemic didn’t make it any easier. I saw so many patients suffer and felt helpless that I couldn’t do more. I wanted to offer healing on a deeper level by examining the root cause in order to change things for good and care for the person as a whole. But I was feeling stuck. I was afraid to leave my stable job. Medicine was all I knew. What else could I do?"

Cindy Tsai is an internal medicine physician and can be reached on Twitter @cindytsaimd.

She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "Should you stay or leave medicine?" (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/09/should-you-stay-or-leave-medicine.html)