Time To Move On

Hi, I’m new here.  And very honored to be here, at that.  I’m a pathologist, in private practice for > 5 years (settling in to the flatter portion at the top of the exponential career curve of knowledge/abject terror), but < 10 years (I suspect, the point on that curve at which cynicism overrides all other basal functions and drives one towards a retirement countdown sticker chart).

I’m in my second post-training big-girl-pants job, and I’ve been here for a little over 8 years.  I briefly tangled with a super-crap job, lasting only six months right out of training, working for a very bad man rocking various personality disorders.....but that will be another story for another day.  This current job is where I became an adult.  And this job is where I damn near had my love for pathology drained of my brain completely.  But it’s time to move on, and I’m doing just that.

Over a period of years, I had somehow found myself struggling to get through the work day, doing twice as much work as is safe to do, getting paid a quarter of the money being made off of my back.  I had become everything to everyone in my office and to the clinicians in the hospital, and nothing to myself professionally. I hated every minute of it.  And my marriage was suffering for the long hours, which I finally figured out after hearing myself in every conversation trying to justify my absences. It just didn't sound authentic to me. Working 60+ hours a week as a pathologist is not particularly normal. But it took a while for me to figure this out -- Stockholm syndrome is real, ya'll. And then, nearly exactly two years ago I had a gorgeous baby girl, induced at 36+1 weeks for oligohydramnios, weighing in at a whopping 4 lbs 15 oz.  And my placenta was just as small as that tiny girl, 5th percentile.  Everything was "fine" until it wasn't.  I've since learned that many of the births to female docs in similar situations to myself are premature for various reasons, commonly for oligo……………can’t help but think there is a link there. 

I’ve worked with some wonderful people over the years while doing this job.  Most of the ones who have stayed for longer than a year are the type that persevere long past the expiration date, and they just keep on going.  Each seems to have his or her own reason for doing so:  'finish what you start', 'I cannot be defeated', 'everyone will like me eventually', 'it’s not really that bad', 'I deserve this pain', 'it is too hard to change'.  What is my reason?  I’ve already made too many mistakes.  This can’t be another one.  I can make this work.  My family is depending on me.

Life is too short to stay in a job that is soul-crushing.  No job is perfect certainly, but no job should harm your psychic core or fizzle your spark.  If you don’t recognize the person that you were, that idealistic nerdling resident, marveling at those exquisite enterocytes mingling with those gorgeous goblet cells, and you can’t find her deep down in there somewhere………..it’s time to make a change. And preferably before that gal has packed up her shit and moved to the outer recesses of the universe, never to be seen or heard from again.  Mistakes will always be made, some big and some small, but they can always be corrected.  Be the change, as they say (whoever they may be).  You always have the power to make things better.  I have become a path beast during my time here, and now I’m doing my best not to become a pathological beast.  Put yourself into the situation that you want to be in, whatever that may be.  It could take awhile, sometimes may even take eight years and some major life changes.  Remove yourself from the people and entities who take everything from you and give nothing back in return.  I’m doing just that in short order.  Even though it’s a move to a more backward state than the one in which I currently reside, but that’s yet another story for another day………

Take care of yourself first, the rest will follow.

Progress and peace to my fellow burnout warriors :0)
TheUnluckyPath