Fightmaster MD Audio

I went to medical school on a faulty assumption: even though I didn’t want to do it, I could do it and still be happy. Spitting at Robert Frost’s counsel, I took the road more traveled, and indeed, it made all the difference.

I get it; leaving a career that offers the security of a six figure paycheck is mystifying. At this mystification, my friends and family have tried to guess why I left, to understand why someone would exit an eight-year, $250,000 investment.

Back in the fall of 2021, l was cloaked in low-grade misery. I had run the medicine horse to death, searched the landscape over, and the prospect of fulfillment was nil, based on seven and a half years of experience.

Some hear this and are bound to wonder, as I rationalized for most of a decade, “How could you resent being a physician? What an honor.” I do not resent being a physician, undergoing the training, or finishing residency. Medicine is a beautiful profession and absolutely the right career choice for many. What I resented was myself, for not going after what I wanted, which was something other than medicine. There was shame in that, which produced inaction and a relentless pouring over the past for answers.

This is where I found myself, back in the fall of 2021. Not seeking ways to improve my situation, I was interested in locating means to change the past and methods to numb the present. But, I was growing tired of the charade. Something had to be done.

Competition is critical; not for the ego-notched victories but for the learning opportunities. The insights made available through sport are not as clear in our day-to-day, but once we’ve felt it in competition, we get to take it back to the day-to-day.

Thank God for adult rec league softball, because I needed an insight.

How is this whole leaving medicine thing going?

I often worry about how to make enough money. I wonder if I can figure this out. I doubt myself, ponder if I made a mistake. Fear pulses shake me from sleep, followed by flashes of relief when I consider a return to medicine, which would keep the lights on and pay the student loans numbering in the hundreds of thousands. There’s security. There’s certainty. It’s something akin to a warm blanket on a cold night in the woods. For a long time, accepting that blanket was instinct. Second nature.

A year ago I realized the gig was up. Was I going to quit medicine then? No chance, but the sinking realization was slowly becoming objective reality: this isn’t going to work. I’d seen enough to know. If I were to live a happy and purposeful life, I had to do something else and figure it out soon. But where should I start?

My life has its own seasonality: harvests, barrenness, sprouts, and growth. This personal winter had been hard to shake. But decisively, a moment arrived, where I knew there was no need to keep the faucets dripping.

If you’ve made it this far with me, you’ve probably asked yourself, “How did he do this for so long?” To go to medical school, finish a residency, and become a psychiatrist, this guy must be crazy!  

Understanding myself first, then building from there, was always the answer and the hardest work to do, because it required I forego the rescue fantasy. No epiphanies were coming, no perfect paths forward, just a distilling of what matters to me and making choices.

That feeling wouldn’t change—from medical school acceptance to board certification—and it required moving across the country, leaving my family, and becoming a psychiatrist, before I could act on it. Now, I turn the page.