Finding a Creative Career as a Doctor

Are you wondering about creative careers for doctors? Do you think of yourself as a creative person? Do you ever feel an urge to draw, paint, write or start playing music, but immediately start to second guess yourself?

Our guest this week, Dr. Kricia Palmer was always a creative kid growing up. She started off college majoring in dance and dreamed of being a dancer, but ultimately chose to pursue medicine instead.

As early as residency, she realized that something didn’t feel quite right in her medical career. She felt a pull to be more creative and started to fall in love with interior design. Several years into clinical practice she left to stay home with her kids, went back to school for interior design and now has created her own interior design business “House Calls for Physicians”.

During this episode Kricia and I talk all about

Deciding when to monetize a passion or just keep it as a hobby
Dealing with haters and guilt as you transition out of clinical medicine
Cultivating a beginner’s mindset so you can try new things without being perfect right away
Tips on cultivating and practicing creativity as a form of self care- even if you aren’t an artist.

If you’ve been struggling with the idea that “I’m not creative”, this episode will give you such powerful inspiration to reclaim your relationship with creativity.

Click the audio player above to listen in or, go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or search “Life After Medicine” wherever you listen to podcasts.

Deciding to pursue creative careers for doctors

Dr. Kricia Palmer was a creative and active kid growing up. She dreamt of being a dancer when she graduated from highschool. She eventually left that career because she didn’t want to teach dance.

Kricia started going to the medical school, and during her residency in pediatrics felt that something was not right. She stumbled upon the HGTV show “Trading Spaces” and fell in love with interior design.

One of her boys has special needs and she decided to quit her job in clinical medicine and stay at home for her boys. In her spare time she started studying interior design. After getting a degree, she worked as an intern to a local designer Tobi Fairley and eventually opened her own business House Calls For Physicians.

Turning a passion into a business

If you want to pursue creative careers for doctors, you have to be careful about which creative career to pursue. It’s not necessarily wise to monetize every single hobby or passion. You always have to be prepared to enter into a business. It is not always unicorns and rainbows. Monetizing your passion takes hard work, and if that takes the joy out of it for you then that is something to consider.

Dr. Palmer took tests to examine herself which showed that she is whole brain dominant to the right. So for her creating an interior design business was a perfect mix of monetizing your passion and creativity and turning it to a business.

Its about knowing yourself, knowing what you want and why you want it.

It’s OK to pursue creative careers for doctors

Dr. Palmer went through a lot of guilt and doubts on pursuing a career path other than medicine. She felt that she owed it to herself to stay put in medicine, even though she wasn’t happy. Finally she questioned all those voices of fear and self doubt and decided to pursue a creative career for doctors: interior design.

She took classes secretly and invested in herself then eventually gained confidence to tell everyone about her plans. At one point, she did have a hater who left an aggressive comment in a FB group.

She learned that most of the time, if other people talk like that to her, it says more about what they are going through, than it does anything about her. It matters what you think of you.

Tapping into your creativity as a doctor

One of the biggest lessons she learned is how to be a beginner. Pursuing a creative career for doctors sometimes requires you to initially be bad at something. But the good news is, most skills can be learned if you have the desire to learn them. Dr. Palmer has learned that’s just a part of the process. She remembers to take one step at a time, keep taking actions and have self-compassion.

Creativity is an actual human need, when we are younger we are all creative, but we start to lose that as we grow up. Creativity is not necessarily about being an artist, but just creating something new. It’s the process of thinking of new things and bringing them into fruition. and It can be new ideas, new processes, your old take on an old idea, taking something and making it your own.

First thing to do if someone is looking to access their creativity is to get silence and solitude. Slowing down and having some quiet. Taking a few minutes for meditation, journaling. Sometimes when we are to busy, it stops us from being creative. Also, it’s important to remember that creativity doesn’t have to look a certain way.

Creativity as a form of self care

Being creative doesn’t have to have an end product. Being creative is actually a process. First, ask yourself what you really want to do. Allow yourself to be creative and do whatever comes to mind, have self-compassion and enjoying the process.

“Be careful about online shopping or scrolling pinterest. When we are talking about decorating for self-care, a lot of these activities are overwhelming and leaves you drained rather than replenished. Instead of scrolling, focus on creating”
Kricia Palmer, MD

When you scroll instead of create. its like you are buffering away all the feeling of tension and anxiety instead of just relaxing and creating.

Building creative careers for doctors

Dr. Kricia Palmer offers a course called Design Academy created specifically for women physicians who want to become their own interior designers. She also offers 1-1 design services for physicians physicians.

Creating a beautiful external environment can impact you internally. It can improve your mood and productivity.

Building a creative career for doctors can be highly fulfilling, but it’s never going to feel perfect 100% of the time. If you really want to feel fulfilled, don’t try control the external things and focus on yourself. Focus on how you are showing up in the world and aligning with your own values.