Humans in Healthcare #23 | The Guilt Trap

Hey there, friend.

Did you know that more than 6.5 million healthcare professionals are estimated to permanently leave their positions by 2026?

😬 

There’s a good chance that many of you reading this have left or are contemplating doing so. For this chapter, I’m sharing my experiences with the guilt and shame of leaving patient care and some thoughts about how you can work through it if you are experiencing the same.

AND I’m trying something new by giving you a choice between *listening 🎧or reading 📖 this chapter.

I poured my heart, soul, and voice into this one. I hope you take something from it or leave something behind.

But first, a story.

💜

The Backstory

When I was around 10, my family and I took a trip to NYC. Walking through the streets, I encountered a homeless man for the first time. I met his eyes with mine. He looked at me silently, his weathered hands laying gently in his lap, open to receive.

The only thing I had to give was a banana. Placing it in his lap, our hands touched for a brief moment. Continuing on our destination, I turned back to look at him and saw that the banana had been eaten in two gulps, his hands already back in his lap, open, ready to receive again.

Returning home, I wept for days. I couldn’t understand why homelessness and suffering existed. To this day, I still see him in my mind. I still weep. Our hands touching was a moment of connection, but for me, a memory for a lifetime. It was the day I learned that one of my gifts is compassion.

Later on in my life, after navigating the world with a special needs brother, and recovering from my nearly 10-year struggle with Anorexia and all of the mental health challenges that came with it, I knew that I wanted to use my gift of compassion and extend help and healing to others who were hurting. Like the homeless man with his hands open and ready to receive, I wanted to take people’s hands and walk with them.

And so I chose to go to PA school and work in medicine as a way to use those gifts.

I penned these words in my journal upon graduation from PA school:

So you can imagine the extreme guilt (intermixed with shame) I experienced when I found myself in a place of wanting to leave the profession of medicine because I was not finding the environment sustainable. Even survivable.

Patients need me, right? My colleagues depend on me, right? Compassion is my gift and I love to help people. Isn’t this my calling? Wouldn’t I be abandoning it and what I’ve worked hard for? I dedicated years and money to obtaining a clinical credential. Am I giving up?

Enter — The Guilt Trap (with droppings of shame).

And it stuck around long after I transitioned out.

When you feel guilty for leaving the profession of patient care

I know many of you are exploring this transition. Below, I share a few ideas that might help you minimize the guilt of leaving medicine. It’s what I wish I had done before I left.

*These suggestions are through the lens of my own experiences. I acknowledge it may not be the same for you. Take what you need from this and leave what doesn’t serve you 🙂 

1. De-identify who you are with what you do

Imagine for a minute — what would happen if your title was abruptly stripped from you?

Would you know who you are underneath your title?

If you have a hard time articulating who you are outside of what you do, perhaps it might suggest that you need to spend time reflecting on who you are, what you value, what gives you energy, and what drains you.

We can describe ourselves by what we do, but it’s counterproductive to define ourselves by what we do. We are humans first and are much more than our credentials or professional identity. Much, much more.

So here’s my challenge: instead of saying “I am an X” (PA, NP, PT, PharmD, etc), consider reframing it to say something like, “I help and serve people through the practice of medicine as an X.”

Why?

Your values and passion could be helping and serving and there are many avenues to do that outside of direct patient care.

“I help and serve people by creating community and content.”

“I help and serve people by volunteering at a local soup kitchen.”

“I help and serve people by providing best-in-class service through customer success at a health tech company.”

When you don’t define who you are with what you do, you can take your values and passion anywhere, free of guilt.

2. Consider viewing medicine as a job, not a calling

When we view medicine as a calling, we invite the sunk cost fallacy. This is when a person is hesitant to stop a strategy or course of action because of an investment made, despite it likely being more beneficial to stop the course of action.

Medicine can be an avenue in which you use the gifts you’ve been called to, but it doesn’t have to be your calling.

Gifts are yours to own and give away. Letting medicine own your gifts can be similar to a toxic, abusive relationship. Perhaps it wasn’t always like this, but the system of healthcare today will ask more and more of you and not give you the same in return. It’s a bit like unrequited love.

Viewing medicine as a job gives you some optionality and an opportunity for you to evolve and use your gifts as you do.

3. Look back to move forward

Guilt kept me stuck. To move on from it, I had to come to a point of acknowledgment. To do this, I looked back first before I moved forward.

I took time to reflect on the years of service and sacrifice I had given. I honored the moments of endurance, struggles, and joys, the relationships I had made with patients and colleagues, and all that I had learned. I saw it for what it was — a season of my life for which I was grateful.

I let myself be proud of the fact that I served honorably and with integrity — not something that I was leaving behind, but something that I would take forward in my next opportunity.

Though guilt revisits me from time to time, I mostly reflect on the season with gratitude.

4. Reframe ‘leaving’ with ‘retiring’

What we describe as “leaving patient care” can get mistaken for “abandoning”.

We aren’t abandoning. We are retiring from a season of our life that we served honorably, and with integrity, and using what we’ve learned to inform our next chapter that could even help more people.

When clinicians leave direct care, they often remain in healthcare because what drew them to it in the first place was a way to use their gifts and passion, not necessarily the job itself.

Other professions have early retirement and these people still go on to do great things in their second, third, and fourth acts. People do come "out of retirement" from time to time.

So let’s give ourselves some grace if we are finding it unsustainable.

5. Normalize

Some people treat clinicians leaving clinical care with judgment and shame instead of curiosity and compassion. And for a long time, I treated myself the same way.

Just recently someone told me I’d be better off helping patients instead of trying to build something meaningful to help my colleagues who are feeling burned out, need community support, and want to build a career portfolio.

Ah, yes, that familiar feeling of being shrunk to the box I’m supposed to fit in — seen as only my credentials and what I have done instead of the person I am, the gifts that I have, and what I can become.

This is why I am an advocate for normalizing.

Normalize career pivots. Normalize career breaks. Normalize nonlinear careers. Normalize clinicians in transitions. Normalize clinician career portfolios. Normalize roles in and out of the clinic walls.

Not everyone fits in a box. Not everyone follows the same path. Not everyone follows a path.

Trust yourself to know your limits. You can bend. You don’t need to overextend.

You are allowed to grow out of something to grow into another thing. You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to take your time.

The only permission you need is from yourself.

Looking back to move forward

The words I penned in my journal upon graduation from PA school 12 years ago still hold today. My compassion and desire to help people have not changed. These are my gifts.

The avenue in which I use them just looks different.

I provide compassionate care and help to healthcare professionals through building content, community, support, and a space to be human. (would love to have you join!)

I provide compassionate care and help to early patient-focused healthcare companies by using my traditional clinical skills in non-traditional ways.

I provide compassionate care and help to those in recovery from an eating disorder through weekly peer mentoring.

(and so many more examples because I am a complex being with many layers). And so are you.

Less guilt and more freedom to step into this next season of my life where I just might help even more people.

And so, my creative spirit lives on.

As I wrap this chapter, here are a few thoughts to bookmark and reflect on this week:

In humanity,

Amy

🤝 HELP ME HELP YOU

🩺 Are you in a transition out of clinical medicine and need support? Become a member of the Humans in Healthcare community designed to support you along the career continuum.

✍️ Writing this was healing. If writing is also cathartic for you, reach out to share your story here. Let’s normalize this conversation together.

👀 Looking to hire clinical talent or need early product feedback from clinicians? Post on my job board seen by thousands of clinicians