Is it possible to pursue fulfilling career paths for doctors that do not require sacrificing your passions and interests?
Does it have to consume all aspects of your life? In this article, we challenge these common beliefs and explore the possibility of a balanced, fulfilling life within the medical field.
We share the story of Dr. Kristine Goins, a board-certified integrative adult and pediatric psychiatrist and world traveler, who has managed to redefine her career path.
Dr. Goins now works remotely in mental health care and advocacy after leaving her traditional practice. Balancing this with travel, she shares how she’s made a lifestyle of working in medicine while fully enjoying life.
Traditional career paths for doctors require too much sacrifice
Sacrificing travel and other passions
Kristine always had two competing loves: medicine and travel. Early on in her career path toward medicine, she realized that it was going to require significant sacrifices to pursue.
She was accepted into medical school during her final year, which was fantastic. However, this opportunity required her to abandon her dream of traveling overseas.
She had to cancel a pre-planned and paid-for study abroad experience due to conflicts with her medical training.
This instance served as a reminder that the career paths for doctors often demand giving up personal interests and passions.
It was the first sacrifice she made for her medical career, but it wouldn’t be her last. While her love for medicine was strong, her passion for travel was equally compelling.
She strived to intertwine these two passions but found herself continuously compromising one for the other.
Sacrificing her health
Medical training instills a culture of suppressing both our desires and our needs. The relentless drive to ‘power through’ often leads medical professionals to override their bodies.
As Kristine continued working in medicine, her health began to deteriorate. She experienced severe physical symptoms, including chest pain and neurological issues.
Eventually, she found herself in a neurologist’s office, feeling overwhelmed and stressed. The neurologist’s response was, “Do you want some anti-depressants?”
At that point, Kristine realized she needed to make a change. There was an imbalance in her life, but it wasn’t a serotonin imbalance.It came from living a life out of alignment with her values.
The passing of her grandmother served as another wake-up call, reminding her of life’s unpredictability. It pushed her to reevaluate her choices and prioritize living the life she truly desired.
Practicing career paths for doctors that don’t require sacrifice
Mindset Shift: Putting medicine in its proper place
Kristine believes that it is absolutely possible to have a fulfilling career in medicine without it consuming all aspects of your life.
She found a way to curate career paths for doctors and align them with its proper place in her life, which helped her to love it even more.
For her, it was crucial that practicing medicine also allowed room for other aspects of her life that she was equally passionate about.
The first step to putting medicine in its “proper place” is creating an opening for time freedom.
Without small windows of time to slow down and pause, it’s impossible to have a proper perspective about what is really important.
It requires conscious decision-making and careful intention-setting to design the life you want.
Practices and philosophies such as essentialism and minimalism helped her to start removing unnecessary things so she could fill her life with everything that she really wanted.
Getting creative with designing your options
In the pursuit of a fulfilling career, many professionals find themselves asking, “What are my options?” They ask others for advice, spend hours on Google, and still feel no closer to finding their path.
The key to discovering your options lies in working through your limiting beliefs first.
Once you do this, you will have a clearer vision and understanding of what you truly want. Traditionally, medical professionals have been trained to follow a strict roadmap.
Deviation from these traditional career paths for doctors is discouraged, making it difficult to envision alternative career trajectories.
For years, Kristine wrestled with this too. She longed to travel the world while also fulfilling her passion for medicine, but that wasn’t part of the roadmap.
She didn’t see anyone else combining medicine and travel, so it didn’t feel like an option. Eventually, she discovered that the most fulfilling options are those you create yourself.
The notion of designing your career path might seem daunting, but it’s a step-by-step process. It doesn’t necessarily require dramatic reinvention but rather a unique combination of existing roles and opportunities.
It requires courage, commitment, and a willingness to learn new skills. It is about transforming your vision into reality.
It’s about manifesting one’s desires and bringing them to the world, even when it seems terrifying.
Creating the freedom to enjoy your life
The benefits of traveling and discovering other hobbies
Although Kristine loves her work, part of “putting medicine in its proper place” means that she only works two days a week.
The rest of her week is devoted to her other passions in life, which vary from season to season. One season was devoted to her wine studies, having become a wine professional.
Another season might be about traveling the world, as she switches countries every two to three months.
Currently, she’s taking singing lessons, and it’s through these varied interests and hobbies that she’s discovered more about herself.
For instance, her whole life, she thought she was an alto. But she recently found out from her singing teacher that she was actually a soprano who was afraid to sing high notes.
Learning more about herself has not only made her a better physician but also a better sister, daughter, friend, and partner.
Travel and time freedom have given her the ability to be more creative and flexible and to form deeper, more meaningful connections with people from all over the world.
She believes this is the true gift of travel and an experience she wouldn’t have had otherwise.
The importance and benefits of time freedom
Time freedom is one of the most important pieces of a “freedom lifestyle.” It allows for daily novelty and moment-to-moment awareness, which can bring immense joy.
It also provides space for introspection, allowing you to understand your desires and how you want to spend your time on earth.
This clarity makes decision-making easier and life more meaningful since decisions are made based on alignment with personal values. Travel and time freedom also build confidence and self-trust.
It’s through repeated exposure to new experiences that one learns to rely on their intuition and inner guidance. This trust is vital for personal growth and self-discovery.
Start cultivating time freedom in small practical ways
However, time freedom can often feel like a luxury in this busy world. For those who feel overwhelmed by their schedules, Kristine suggests starting small.
Taking just three minutes a day to enjoy a peaceful lunch or gaze at some greenery can make a difference.
Gradually, these small pockets of time can be expanded, and activities that don’t bring joy can be delegated.
You don’t have to initiate massive transformations all at once. Just start by creating space for yourself.
This may seem revolutionary, especially for women and mothers who are often accustomed to giving their time and effort to everyone else.
The traditional career paths for doctors, in particular, demand a tremendous amount of unpaid labor, such as volunteering for committees.
If you are feeling trapped, start reducing these unpaid commitments and begin carving out time for yourself. Slowly, you can turn this into a regular practice.
Even though the journey towards change might be presented as a glamorous leap from one lifestyle to another, in reality, it’s a series of small, gradual steps.
One of these steps is recognizing and respecting one’s desires and passions.
If there’s a deep-seated desire to do something, lean into it instead of suppressing it. The key is to listen to one’s inner voice and have the courage to follow it.
This might seem daunting, but with the right guidance and support, it’s entirely achievable. It’s about crafting a life that’s not just about work but also includes passion, freedom, and personal fulfillment.
It is entirely possible to create career paths for doctors while still living life to the fullest. Kristine is a living testament to this, having crafted a lifestyle that combines her medical career with travel and a host of other interests.
A two-day workweek may seem like a lofty goal, but it exemplifies how you can make a living, make a difference, and still have the freedom to enjoy life.
This balance requires the creation of personal time, moments of stillness, and a connection to what you truly desire. It also necessitates thinking outside the box and designing a life that may be unlike any you’ve seen before.
To delve deeper into how to achieve such a balance, be sure to listen to this week’s episode for an in-depth discussion on this topic.
