I’m Writing a Book About How to Leave Medicine
I’ve been thinking about the last four years since I left medicine and even further back to when I started this blog, Mind The Medic. Through it all, I’ve written about my experiences and shared my musings but most of all I’ve tried to be as honest as I could even through my process of deciding to leave medicine.
It’s always been my goal to try to paint a true picture even if sometimes it may have made for depressing reading.
It’s July and during this time 4 years ago in 2018, I was counting down the number of shifts until the end of F2. When I think about it, and look at where I am right now, I can honestly say that I’m definitely not where I thought I would be. It would be easy for me to wallow in that or for that realisation to be a source of disappointment but I know that within that time period I learned so, so much. Plus, I give myself grace because I certainly couldn’t have predicted the things that happened like a whole pandemic.
But given the chance, I’d definitely do things differently.
Wouldn’t that be nice? If I could turn back time and have a do-over. Unfortunately, I can’t and I have to settle for the next best thing: growth.
The funny thing about having a blog is that people are still discovering my essays years after they were posted. Through it, my readers contact me and ask me the same questions that plagued me at the time I wanted to leave medicine.
It’s weird because after constantly moving from one new place to another, I felt like a perpetual newcomer but here on my blog, I could help someone else, even though I thought I left that part of me behind. And after several of these interactions, I realised that I had a lot of things to share.
I know a lot about how to leave medicine because I’ve done it a couple of times. I also know what not to do because I’ve made many mistakes. I know what’s caused some of my biggest struggles and what has made the journey really hard and what I would tell other people not to do so they can avoid taking the same path.
I thought about writing a book on quitting medicine earlier this year and I even floated the idea of it in a prior…
