Stuck in the Middle: What Happens When You Love Patient Care, But Not Healthcare?
Stuck in limbo? Learn to
Map out career satisfaction.
No matter your role in healthcare, you may have noticed an interesting conundrum.
There's a daily push and pull in your career.
Because you love caring for people.
It makes your day to ease someone's pain, allay their fears, or celebrate their victory over a challenging medical condition.
You value the connection and camaraderie you share with your patients.
But the rest? It's draining. It's frustrating. It's demoralizing.
Should you stay? Should you go?
It leaves you in limbo, trying to figure out how to move forward.
Let's find a way.
Know the Lay of the Land: Assess Your Current Level of Career Satisfaction
Creating awareness is essential whenever you find yourself stuck and unsure of how to move forward.
Navigation requires a sense of place.
Before we were lucky enough to have maps that talked to us and directed our every turn, we didn't just start turning down random roads and hoping for the best. We had to figure out where we were on the map.
Examine Your Relationship With Work
Whether you create a simple list or whip up a fancy spreadsheet, take time to document which aspects of your job feel most rewarding and which feel most challenging.
While a simple pros and cons list won't give you the answer, it's a nice place to start. One side might seemingly outnumber the other, but the "weight" of the pros and cons aren't always equal.
For example, the haven of a private office might be far outweighed by onerous on-call requirements that significantly disrupt your home life.
Get Specific on Your Workplace Stressors.
Next, consider your top three sources of stress. Knowing which aspect of your work account for the majority of your stress can provide helpful insights into how to move forward.
The more detail you can provide, the easier it is to know which strategies can help shift your experience.
Here's a list of common challenges for healthcare professionals:
Overly Demanding Workload - Perhaps excessive paperwork bogs you down, or you're drained by long hours or on-call days.
Lack of Autonomy - Regularly feeling that you have no control over your schedule or how you care for patients can lead to frustration and a sense of hopelessness.
Emotional Exhaustion - Being immersed in, or feeling responsible for, the suffering of your patients can silently impact your energy.
Administrative Burdens - If patient care fulfills you, being frequently asked to devote time to non-clinical tasks may detract from your enjoyment.
Staffing or Resource Shortages - Routinely functioning without adequate support or supplies is not only aggravating, but it can also contribute to the feeling that you're unable to provide a quality of care that lives up to your standards.
Systemic Issues - Challenges can arise when having to comply with healthcare policies, regulations, or bureaucracy that may be time-consuming or, worse yet, be in opposition with your values. Interpersonal conflicts or an unsupportive workplace culture can also be draining.
Identify Burnout Vs. Mismatch
Unfortunately, the presence of burnout in healthcare is no longer a surprise to most people. Healthcare professionals can often be caught off-guard when it shows up for them, so it's essential to know the signs.
But there's also something else to consider. Burnout may not be the only factor at play. It's also possible your current role just isn't a good match for you.
If you've made a list of your job's rewards and challenges and find difficulty naming the positives while quickly listing the negatives, it may signal job misalignment. Other indicators of possible job mismatch include identifying limited opportunities for growth or finding your values incompatible with your current organization.
Knowing whether your workplace woes stem more from burnout or a suboptimal fit is important for creating your game plan for future success.
Decide How to Move Forward
While eradicating healthcare burnout requires action at the systemic and cultural levels, introverts in healthcare can empower themselves to take personal action toward their own burnout recovery.
Healthcare professionals can use awareness, self-compassion, and self-care in combination with targeted systems to overcome burnout. Exploring small shifts in work processes, learning new coping and management skills, and seeking support can effectively defeat burnout.
On the other hand, if you've discovered your current position isn't an ideal fit, it doesn't mean you're destined for a life of career dissatisfaction. Instead, solving this dilemma requires a different approach.
Explore the Map: Discover New Healthcare Opportunities When You Feel Stuck in Your Current Job
One of the amazing things about healthcare is the vast number of ways you can make a difference in patients' lives.
If you still love patient care but have come to the realization that your current role isn't quite right, it's time to get really clear on what you DO want.
By having clarity around your wants, needs, and strengths, you increase the odds of finding the best-fit position for you.
Keep in mind that you will never love every aspect of your job. There are rules and regulations that follow you wherever you go.
When considering any role, be honest with yourself. Pay attention to your list of rewards and challenges. Which aspects of patient care are essential for your career fulfillment? Which burdens are absolutely not tolerable?
For example, if you know you're not well-suited to high-volume clinics or having your schedule dictated, honor that as you explore your options. Give just as much weight to those aspects of work that bring you pleasure. Maybe you value developing close, long-term relationships with your patients or function best in a specific type of work environment. Be sure to acknowledge those needs.
If you ignore your personal requirements when switching roles, you may find yourself in a sort of Groundhog Day. You want to avoid changing jobs only to have the same frustrations and irritations.
To help you start your exploration, I've included a brief listing of possible patient care settings for healthcare professionals. This will help you decide what's best for you when you want to ditch your dissatisfaction but not your patients.
Employed Positions Within a Healthcare System: While employment can mean decreased autonomy and flexibility within your role, it can also provide greater access to income stability, benefits, and opportunities for collaboration.
Traditional Solo or Group Practice: Hanging your shingle provides great autonomy and allows for more creativity in how you care for patients. With this flexibility comes greater responsibility and the need to wear more hats in your business as you take on administrative and financial responsibilities, as well. Being part of a group can increase collaboration and decrease overhead and business office burdens but may result in less autonomy.
Concierge Medicine: Whether you embrace the concierge model fully or as a hybrid in conjunction with a traditional insurance-based model, this option can allow for increased patient time and greater personalization of care. The downsides can include higher patient expectations and having fewer patients willing or able to switch to this type of care.
Direct Primary Care: This patient-centered paradigm avoids the need to deal with insurance requirements and allows for more time with patients. However, it may involve greater financial risk and less ability to offer specialized services.
Telehealth Practice: Virtual visits can result in lower overhead and give you more adaptability in how and when you see patients, but you might miss the hands-on experience of patient care. Technical difficulties and regulatory challenges may cause frustration.
Mobile Clinics: You may feel deep satisfaction serving underserved areas and creating community impact. On the other hand, high operating costs and logistical challenges may be bothersome.
Locum Tenens: Covering vacancies in various locations may increase your earning potential and fulfill your need for novelty and variety. The flip side of this type of opportunity is a potentially irregular schedule and decreased long-term job security. Frequent travel may be a plus or minus depending on your preferences.
The opportunities don’t end with this list; they only end when you fail to explore. A willingness to consider what’s possible and the courage to chart your own path can serve you well.
A job mismatch can keep you feeling stuck. When it seems you don't have other options, give yourself space to imagine what’s possible. Your ideal job may not exist yet. You may need to create it, or you may find the perfect fit with a bit of research.
I hope this brief list has started your mental wheels spinning.
With a little curiosity and inventiveness, you might be surprised to learn that finding job satisfaction doesn't require you to leave medicine. Instead, you may discover that perfect role that reminds you why healthcare is exactly where you’re meant to be.
Charity is a physician and burnout coach helping introverts in healthcare escape feelings of apathy, irritability, and resentment brought on by the increasing demands and decreasing rewards of medicine.
She uses her 20 years of experience in clinical medicine combined with coaching to help introverts discover ways to be diligent, thoughtful clinicians while prioritizing their needs and protecting their energy. She wants you to know you don’t have to feel guilty for wanting a thriving life inside and outside of medicine.