Facing a decision about whether to leave your job for a new one or stay put is a common problem that arises for many women physicians. There’s a certain level of fear of the unknown. But there is also a worry that your reputation will suffer and wondering what other people will think.

 

The Chief Complaint: “I’m having confusion about what I should do in terms of my job. Should I stay or should I go?”

I’m joined by a female physician at a teaching hospital where she feels unappreciated and neglected at her job. A new position at a community hospital in a beautiful part of the United States is available for her. The new role would involve relocation and a substantial raise, but she would lose the titles and prestige she currently has.

There is a lot of pressure put on this physician, by herself, in regards to hurting her national reputation. She feels like others would judge her for leaving a teaching position. Her biggest concern is losing her titles and feeling ashamed at national conferences when she can’t refer to her University.

We approach this chief complaint by eliminating one factor of The Problem. Doing this actually made the decision-making process a lot clearer. But I would still recommend writing out a pro and con list of this decision as this lets you see, in black and white, how each decision stacks up.

There is definitely a high level of fear surrounding this decision, especially the fear of the unknown and what others would think. I help this physician through a visualization where she took the new job. In this visualization, she realized that she wouldn’t be giving the prestige of the titles up - in fact, she would be gaining so much.

We have identified the biggest concern holding this female physician back. It’s still a very personal decision that she needs to make with her husband and family. But by knowing how to look at the Chief Complaint from other perspectives, this physician is ready to tackle the decision.

 

Homework

Are you ready for people to make incorrect judgments of you in order to make a career move that impacts your titles? Are you willing to look at the other side of things? Let me know in the comments on the episode page!

 

In This Episode 

• How your reputation could be nationally hurt
• What people might judge you on
• What happens when you eliminate one factor of The Problem
• What the benefit of making a pro and con list is
• How fear can impact your decision-making process
• How visualization can help you make a decision regarding your chief complaint
• What happens when you realize you’re not giving it all up
• Why you need to identify what is holding you back

 

Quotes 

“Are you going to be okay if you don’t have titles? Because, honestly, what other people think of your titles, you can’t control that.” (11:16)

“In your heart, you already know that who you are as a person actually has nothing to do with the titles.” (22:33)

“If I really think about showing up and actually being in the present space where people would be judging me, do you see how you’re like, ‘actually, you know what, they probably wouldn’t judge me.’” (22:48)

“The one thing that we all do, when we’re living in the world we have on our mental filter, we stay in our world. How we’re going to grow as individuals is to start putting ourselves on the other side. Now, what we’ve done is the decision that we’ve put in front of you, we’ve leveled the playing field.” (25:51)

 

Resources Mentioned

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Podcast production by the team at Counterweight Creative