Many of life’s greatest journeys have unplanned twists and turns along the way. My journey to private practice has, indeed, been both great…and full of many twists and turns. At its core, it was the journey toward work-life balance that led me here. The work-life balance discussion has been rehashed so often in the media in my lifetime that it has become cliché. After years of listening to and participating in that discussion, I have formed a couple of strong opinions:
- It is not unique to one gender. Men and women may feel and express their struggles differently, but we all struggle at times.
- There is ebb and flow to the demands of work life and non-work life. There will never be a perfect, permanent balance. One needs to roll with it. How one rolls with it is a very personal decision. Sometimes big decisions will need to be made but most days are full of dozens of tiny decisions on how best to balance.
A number of factors carried me to a fork in the road in 2012 where it was time for a big decision. After much soul-searching, I left my employed role as a physician and leader of a busy subspecialty clinic within a cardiology department to become a stay-at-home Mom. That, as you can guess, is a long story. Above all, it is a story with a pervasive theme of work-life “balance”. Of the options in front of me at the time, my personal best option was 100% family and 0% outside-of-the-home work. For many, 100% family is a dream job. As luck would have it, I realize now that there doesn’t have to be just one dream job in your life. I was lucky to have experienced two dream careers, "Mom" and "Doctor". When you look at it that way, it’s a great problem to have. Each had their own wonderful perks and their own forms of compensation.
If you have ever really loved your job, it is hard to completely let it go. So, just like I’d never turn in my Mom ID card, I soon found that I wasn’t ready to turn in my Doctor ID card either. If I could find ways to better integrate the two, I felt it would be much healthier than always balancing two separate pieces. This might seem like a minor difference but it has made ALL the difference in how I approach big and small decisions. It is easier for one human being to live an integrated life, than to lead two or more separate lives. So, I started to piece together my methodical ‘reentry’ to clinical practice.
Fast forward two years, and I was opening a small private practice built on a culture of integrating life and family. For all the planning involved, I still admit that when I opened my doors, many prayers were said that the referrals would return and that I could weather the storm of uncertainty in the healthcare industry. When I told medical colleagues about what I was doing, I got a variety of looks. Most of them, in retrospect, thought I was pretty nuts to head towards independent practice when most were leaving it. Some gave me looks of total skepticism mixed with pity. Some were worried I’d fail. Others, I might guess, even surmised that I must have gotten fired and this was my last hope; otherwise why on earth would I pursue such a risky endeavor in the prime years of my career? I treasure the colleagues who looked me in the eye and said “That is so awesome. If anyone can do it, you can.” There were days when I really needed those positive thinkers on my side.
So, over a year into my endeavor, how did I do? There have been some wicked twists and turns, but I am happier than at any other point in my adult career and that is success for me. There have been several keys to this success. I will address one of my best surprises in part two, so stay tuned for…. “Finding my Integrated Self, Part Two: The Doctor-Patient Relationship is Alive and Well, Thank You”