Quitting clinical medicine generally brings up feelings of guilt for more clinicians. There is such a heavy layer of guilt piled onto the role of being a healthcare professional- almost like you aren’t allowed to do anything for yourself. Can you relate to this? Is your life being overrun by guilt? Are you feeling guilty about taking a vacation, resigning from a job that no longer serves you, or even just taking an afternoon to yourself? In this episode, I do a deep dive into the emotion of guilt so you can better understand it.
I talk about:
- How the healthcare system uses guilt to manipulate it’s workers in a very negative way
- What guilt actually is and what is the message that it carries
- 3 questions you can use to unpack guilt so it’s no longer running your life.
Use the audio player above to listen, or tune in on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Quitting Clinical Medicine Doesn’t Have to Be a Bad thing
Recently, I was being interviewed on a fellow physician’s podcast about my journey quitting clinical medicine. Before we hit record she was going over my introduction and said “I just can’t bring myself to say the title of your book during the introduction.”
The title of my book is Residency Drop Out. She had this instinctive reaction to the word “Drop Out” that it was something BAD or SHAMEFUL. She didn’t want to insult me by reading the name “Drop Out” in the title.
I sat back in that moment and thought to myself “Wow. This is exactly why I wrote the book. This is exactly why I named it that too.”
I am so proud of being a dropout. Quitting clinical medicine and leaving residency has been the absolute best decision of my life. I want to reclaim the narrative on dropping out and quitting. It absolutely does NOT have to be a bad thing to walk away from jobs, schools, relationships or anything else that no longer serve you.
Quitting can set you free
Quitting is powerful. In her “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast, Glennon Doyle and her pod squad created an entire episode about quitting, which had some beautiful insights. Her sister pointed out the etymology of the word quit. It came from the latin root word quietus which means “to set free”
How freaking beautiful is that. Quitting something can set you free. Quitting clinical medicine can set you free.
In our society, we attach a supremely negative connotation to the concept of quitting. We think of quitting as a failure, a demonstration of poor character and a lack of perseverance. Quitting your marriage and getting a divorce is a failure. Quitting a job is a shocking decision to most people.
It’s such a narrow, limited way of viewing the world, that I want to change
Now, I want to be clear, quitting is not always the answer. There are times when quitting is not in your highest and best interest. Sometimes quitting is actually a sign that you are shrinking down and playing small. Sometimes quitting means you are walking away from your full potential and who you are called to be.
Understand the difference between the two types of quitting requires self honesty, self trust and a high level of discernment. Only YOU can know if you are quitting because it no longer serves you or if you are quitting because you are scared.
Guilt keeps us from quitting clinical medicine
One emotion that always comes up when the idea of quitting clinical medicine is thrown around, is guilt. Guilt is such an insidious, pervasive manipulative emotion, and can keep us stuck in a job that no longer serves us much longer than we’d like.
Guilt shows up in the emotional lives of so many of clients.
- I don’t want to take time off and cause my coworkers to work overtime. Guilt.
- I don’t want to throw away my medical degree that ’ve worked so hard for. Guilt.
- My parents have sacrificed so much for me to have this degree, I owe it to them to see this through. Guilt.
- I can’t resign, because they won’t be able to find a replacement. Guilt.
As healthcare professionals, our decisions tend to come more often from guilt than from true desire.
We make decisions to AVOID guilt, instead of making decisions based on our values.
Using Guilt to Manipulate Healthcare Professionals
The medical field tends to use guilt in order to try and manipulate its workers. I think because most healthcare professionals are such benevolent, kind hearted souls, it can be easy to use guilt to try and manipulate them. I’ve seen it happen so many times in my own life and the lives of my clients and it’s ugly. I want to bring your attention to the ways guilt is used against healthcare professionals so you can have awareness of when it is happening to you.
In residency, was talking to my program director about quitting clinical medicine. She was trying to use guilt to manipulate me into staying. She said things like ” that’s going to be really hard on your co-residents”. Essentially trying to get ME to take responsibility for the fact that my absence would negatively impact other people.
The truth is, my absence was going to be hard on my co-residents, because the healthcare system is exploitative and broken. At the end of the day, it’s not my problem that healthcare produces toxic work environments that make it hard to retain its employees. I refuse to feel guilty because I decided to opt out of that system. No one can make you feel guilty without your consent.
I have clients who deal with this too. Clients who would love to take vacation, but feel too guilty to take time off because it would require one of their partners to cover for them.
In Facebook Groups, I’ve seen emails from hospital admins trying to guilt and shame groups of doctors into picking up more shifts. Guilt manipulation tactics are rampant throughout healthcare, so it’s no wonder we’ve all experienced so much of it.
We don’t have to take responsibility for the failures and brokenness of the healthcare system. It’s not on ME or on YOU.
Dealing with Guilt when Quitting Clinical Medicine.
I wrote another blog post, several years ago unpacking guilt. You can use that same process to unpack the guilt that comes from quitting clinical medicine. Here’s a quick recap of the highlights and the process.
Guilt is an emotion we feel whenever we think we have done something wrong. It means we have violated some standard.
The problem is, most of us have internalized standards from society, peer groups, and family dynamics that we don’t necessarily agree with anymore. To work through guilt you must identify and evaluate the standard. You can do this using three simple questions.
One. Identify the Standard.
What standard am I violating to cause the feelings of guilt?
Two. Evaluate the Standard
Is this a standard I want to continue to uphold in my life? Do I agree with this? What are the negative consequences of continuing to live according to this standard?
Three. Set a New Standard
What do I actually want to expect from myself going forward? What’s a new standard I could set that will serve me and is in alignment with my highest good?
Quitting clinical medicine does NOT have to be something you feel guilty about. Usually the guilt is not even yours. The guilt is coming from some outside source trying to get you to stay in line and conform to something that doesn’t work for you. The guilt is not yours so follow this process to let it go and reclaim your life.
