A little over two years ago, I found myself unemployed for the first time in my life. Considering it was my first job out of fellowship, what was very common for many people my age in other industries, was an altogether new experience for me. I was seriously and vastly out of my element for the first time in my life. I knew at the ripe age of thirteen that I wanted to be a doctor. My love of science was a clear sign that I would love being a doctor. And so, my future was written, the road paved, and my only job was to follow the yellow brick road.
There was nothing breezy about thirteen years of education and training. It wasn’t the hard work, the long days and nights of studying, the exams or the lack of sleep that would challenge my forward progress. Instead, it was the ever-evolving and unstable shifting of the practice of medicine itself that had me questioning my career choice. Whether I knew it or not at the time, while I was busy learning how to save lives, there was a slow but steady growl in the underbelly of health care. Here I was, in the “bubble” of studentship, protected (or blinded) by the walls of education. A thick wall had separated me from the real world and I was about to have a rude awakening out of my ignorant bliss.
As I found myself jobless and lost, I needed to pick up the pieces of my life, my career and my pride and figure out my next move. Was this it? Did I hit a dead end? How did this happen?
The truth is, I had been unhappy for some time working for the hospital. That slow and steady tide that had been sweeping health care grew into an unstoppable tsunami over the few years prior to my termination. I did not recognize it at the time, but I was a drowning victim. I was spending more time contemplating electronic charts, frantically keeping up with metrics and quotas, and attending unproductive meetings, and less time with my patients. I contemplated the dilemma of balancing my patient’s needs while at the same time ensuring that I met productivity numbers.
Toxic, that’s the best word I can use to describe this environment. The scariest party of it all, NO ONE was talking about it. We all had our reasons, our justifications and rationalizations for staying in the game and keeping our disgruntled ramblings to a minimum. But we were in the pit together, doing our best to smile, put our head down and get our work done. Joy? Yeah, not much of that. Work life balance? That didn’t exist either. And if you dared mention it, you were met with a distinctly blank yet disapproving stare.
I felt so very alone. Self-doubt infiltrated every cell of my being and I felt quite confident I was the only one going through this crisis. Physicians are notorious for self-blame. It is the tenant with which we are subjected to throughout our years of training. If you make a mistake, it is your fault. I still believe to this day that care of human health comes with not only a great responsibility, but also a sense of moral and ethical obligation unique to the field of medicine. And it is this obligation, the oath we take to do no harm, that bonds us, as physicians.
I quickly learned that social media was a necessary component to establishing a business in today’s world. What I did not know, but soon found out, was that social media was my lifeline to other physicians; it was my “phone a friend”. It turns out, I was not alone. Other doctors had been in the same boat. Perhaps they had not been “let go” and instead made the courageous proactive choice to jump ship, acknowledging their unhappiness and discontent with the post-tsunami mess that is healthcare today. Nevertheless, what I discovered through my social media connections, was mind-blowing. It was then that I realized that the bond still existed, in its essence, and while we were all just quietly trying to make it all work in our toxic situation, there was a geyser of collective frustration reaching a hot boil.
Whenever doubt starts to poison my mind, whenever I regress to self-blame mode, I am reminded from my colleague’s posts and their responses to my posts, that I am on the better path. And perhaps the yellow brick road was leading me here all along. I may be “solo”, but I’ve never felt more part of a group. In fact, I am a member of more than ten Facebook groups, ranging from Women Physiatrists and Fit Female Physicians to Private Practice Physicians and Doctors on Social Media. Social media has given us a safe space to connect, to rant, to encourage and to collaborate. My Instagram followers are my cheerleaders and my support system, and I, theirs. I have reconnected to medical students and residents through Doximity and LinkedIn. Physicians are thousands of stars in the galaxy, coexisting and united by the gravitational pull of our commitment to do the right thing.
We are not victims at all. We do not have to wallow in “physician burnout” or “moral injury”. And while my sentiment may not outwardly reflect the majority of physicians, I know now that I am not alone. I would venture to guess that in the back of every doctor’s mind is the conflict we are faced with today. Who do we work for? What do we stand for? The answers are not clear for many, but this is the time to figure it out. The power we have together is limitless.