Age-related professional decline is the last thing many doctors want to think about. Those who have just finished years of arduous training can’t imagine that they have only 15 years until they will deteriorate (statistically true), and those of us in middle age don’t want to think about our impending, cognitive retreat from medicine. And yet, this fantastic piece in the Atlantic “Your Professional Decline is Coming (Much) Sooner than You Think” by Arthur C. Brooks is a fascinating, well written article about happiness, gifted and accomplished people, and personal relevance with multiple interesting celebrity examples. Brooks also proposes some quasi-solutions (or at least some work-arounds). I strongly recommend this compelling piece for physicians of all ages and stages.
Blog Archives
Do-It-Yourself Exit Strategy: How I Stitched Together My Own Golden Parachute
Over a decade ago, I was seated in the emergency department with a colleague when I inquired about another one of our physician co-workers I’d not seen in a while. “Oh, she’s on the Mommy Track,” my colleague said and picked up another chart, without giving his words a second thought. To me, selecting a career path that sacrificed career advancement for more time to raise children was legitimate. My colleague’s pejorative “Mommy Track” made it clear that to him, it was not.
At that sad moment, I resolved to pursue a non-clinical supplement to my emergency department work, colloquially known as an “exit strategy.”
Read more on Student Doctor Network here…
Doctorectomy
One of my former emergency medicine residents Christine Tsien Silvers wrote this provocative piece, “Doctorectomy: Why One EP Stopped Practicing Medicine.” The article is charming and insightful, and it provides useful perspective on how your current career choices might clash with your future priorities.
Physician Dissatisfaction in the News
Those of you who have worked with me know that I am a realist. (That term may be a euphemism for a pessimist, but hey, I’m an emergency physician.)
It’s worth reading this article in the NYT, “Young Doctors Worry About Career Choices.” Although job prospects are good for new doctors, there is still a lot that makes the newbies worry.
Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to
stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital.
She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated
Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more
