Before You Decide to Leave Medicine

Chuck, one of my favorite oncologists, stopped me in the hallway last week and asked me a question recently that I’ve heard more times than I can count.

“Do you think you can keep doing this?”

For a second, neither of us said anything. I’ve learned not to answer that question too quickly.

Because after nearly three decades in medicine and years coaching physicians, I know that’s almost never the question my colleague is really asking.

They’re not asking whether they can survive another week of call. Or another week of overbooked clinic. Or another weekend catching up on charts. Or another missed family dinner or tucking in their children. 

They’re asking something much quieter.

“Is this what the rest of my career is going to feel like?”

I suspect most physicians have asked themselves that question at least once.

Not during a crisis. Not after some catastrophic event. Usually the thought wanders into your mindwhen you are driving home after a long day. 

The patients are gone, but your workday somehow isn’t. You still have notes to finish, inbox messages waiting, prior authorizations to review, results to sign, and tomorrow’s schedule already sitting in the back of your mind.

You pull into your driveway, but a part of your brain is still at work.

That’s often when the question shows up.

Can I really keep doing this for another ten… fifteen… twenty years?

I understand why so many physicians arrive there. Medicine has a way of changing so gradually that we hardly notice it while it’s happening.

One committee becomes two. Documentation grows a little longer. The inbox quietly doubles. Patient demands increase. Support staff and resources evaporate. Administrators become increasingly focused on making money. 

Until one day you realize you’re practicing a very different job than the one you trained for. The focus of your day is fundamentally different than the one you pledges to commit to as a twenty something. 

When that happens, it’s easy to conclude that the problem must be medicine itself.Or your organization. Or your specialty.

Sometimes that’s true. But not nearly as often as physicians think.

More commonly, what’s happened is that your career has drifted. Its architecture has slowly changed. Responsibilities have accumulated. Boundaries have blurred.

Your calendar has gradually filled with other people’s priorities instead of your own. But the difficult part is that drift feels personal. It feels like you’ve lost your resilience, motivation, and your ability to handle the work.

Yet when I sit down with physicians and we start looking carefully at how their careers are actually structured, something interesting happens.

Many don’t need to leave medicine. They need to redesign the way they’re practicing it.

That’s an entirely different conversation. And it’s one that’s almost impossible to have when you’re exhausted.

Exhaustion makes every decision feel urgent. 

The good news is that clarity slows everything down. Your focus sharpens. Now you can separate what’s permanent from what’s adjustable. What’s truly misaligned from what’s simply become automatic.

Only then can you decide whether you need a new position, a different role, stronger boundaries, fewer commitments, or a completely different direction.

That’s why I encourage physicians to resist making major career decisions until they’ve first understood the structure they’re working inside.

You deserve to know whether you’re trying to escape medicine…

…or simply trying to escape a version of medicine that was never designed to be sustainable.

A Practical Way Forward

Over the past several years, I’ve created two different ways to help physicians do exactly that.

Some prefer to work through the process independently using the 30-Day Physician Career Control Reset™, a self-paced program designed to help you step back and objectively evaluate your career before making your next move.

Others discover they want a thought partner—someone who has spent decades practicing medicine and understands both the professional and personal weight of these decisions. That’s why I also offer a four-session 90-Day Sustainable Career Redesign coaching program.

Neither path begins with changing jobs. Both begin with seeing your career clearly. One is a self-paces digital program that delivers clarity and sustainable structural change in 30 days. The other is a private 1:1 experience for physicians who need a trusted thought partner to navigate this chapter of their careers. 

Because once you can see your current career architecture clearly, the next step is usually much easier to find.

So if you’ve caught yourself wondering whether you can keep doing this, don’t rush to answer.

Instead, ask yourself one question first.

Am I certain it’s medicine I want to leave… or have I simply never been given the chance to redesign the career I’ve already built?

👉Work With a Physician Coach Who Understands Your World

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