With my support, Scooter has decided not to pursue radiology
or clinical medicine any further. He has been offered a nonclinical fellowship
position at Stanford University and we are moving to Palo Alto, California in a
few short weeks!
For quite a while now, Scooter has been feeling less like being
a doctor was a good fit for him. This last year while he has finally been
practicing the specialty of his choice his unhappiness and dissatisfaction have
only grown. With a minimum of four years of training still ahead of him, he got
to the point where that amount of time seemed almost insurmountable. He became
increasingly sure that he was not going to want to practice medicine as his
future career, and didn’t see enough value in completing the training for a
career that he didn’t want. His decision had nothing to do with his performance
as a radiologist, in fact, he was doing very well, but the decision was
necessitated by his coming to terms with his changing interests. I am so proud
of my husband for being brave enough to take this drastic step to fight for his
own happiness.
To some, this announcement might not seem as dramatic as it
actually is. It is quite common for physicians to switch specialties
mid-training, but to completely leave clinical medicine is rarely done. To
illustrate, less than one hour after the staff of the radiology department at
Mayo (where he currently works) were informed that he would be leaving the
program, Scooter started receiving emails from people at other hospitals in
Phoenix wondering what was going on. That’s how fast the word spread.
For those that are
interested, I’ve answered some questions that frequently come up…
Did he get kicked out
of his program? Absolutely not. The people at Mayo Clinic are sad to see
him go and tried very hard to convince him to stay.
Did he not like his
program/the Mayo Clinic? Scooter has nothing but good things to say about
his program and, particularly, the people he worked with. The program director has
been such a blessing and couldn’t have been more helpful and empathetic during
Scooter’s decision-making process.
So, he won’t be a
doctor anymore? At this point, we don’t foresee him treating patients in
any clinical capacity in the future, but he will maintain an active medical
license and hasn’t closed the door to that possibility.
Why can’t he just
“suck it up and finish”? Scooter is the hardest worker I know, so he could
make himself finish, but we didn’t see the point of him doing four more years
of training (after the six he has already done) to then decide not to practice.
Finishing his training just doesn’t really align with his long-term career
goals anymore.
So all those years of
training are wasted? We don’t see it like that. Firstly, in addition to his
MD, Scooter has an MBA and a Masters in Healthcare Administration, so those two
degrees will be extremely relevant in the future. We also feel that completing as
much medical training as he has, makes him uniquely placed to understand the
medical field and the healthcare industry generally. He has already been
offered a leadership position in his fellowship program because of his prior
training.
What are some of the
things you guys are forfeiting because of this decision? We feel the main
thing we are giving up is security and predictability. This may be
over-simplifying things, but being a practicing physician has a very clear
career path with a very predictable salary and trajectory. For now, the new
path Scooter has chosen is completely full of unknowns, but we felt that giving
up the predictability of clinical medicine was worth it for a chance for
Scooter to really be passionate about and enjoy his career.
How could he get
through so much training before realizing medicine wasn’t for him? If he
felt unhappy in medical school we would tell ourselves that it was because he was
the “pee on”, or he didn’t have any responsibility, or he was only getting to
learn very general medicine which was less interesting to him than
specializing. We told ourselves that when he got to residency and didn’t have
to do broad, general medicine and could specialize in his chosen field that he
would enjoy it more. Most people don’t enjoy their intern year as they are
completely worked to death, so last year we were just looking forward to this
year. This year was his first year of finally doing the type of medicine that
made him want to go to medical school ten years ago when we started this
process.
What have the past
couple months looked like for you guys? The past few months have been
incredibly emotionally intense as we’ve weighed the pros and cons of our
decision. We’ve been staying up half the night making pro/con lists, finding
and applying for jobs and fellowships, filling out applications, writing and
editing admissions essays, counseling with each other, family, friends, church
leaders, colleagues, and acquaintances, and working on renovating and prepping our
house for a move, all while sending Scooter off to work in the morning where he
had to pretend like nothing was going on. Everything we’ve done has been
wrapped in super high-stakes outcome stress. The stress has even bled into our
sleep – I’ve been wakened up countless times by dreams where I feel like I am
falling. It has really felt like a refining fire, but we feel like the end of
this particular stretch of trying times is in sight.
What’s he going to do
at Stanford? The Stanford University fellowship that Scooter has been
accepted to, is called the CERC program. The fellows design, test and
evaluate models of healthcare delivery that lower population-wide spending for
higher quality care. He is ridiculously excited about it. I’ve rarely seen him
so passionate about something.
Where are you going
to leave? The program starts on August 1st, but they prefer to
have him there on July 15th! We only found out about his acceptance
a couple weeks ago while we were in Switzerland, so we are feeling pretty
overwhelmed right now.
What about your
house? When we bought our home 12 months ago, we thought we’d be in Phoenix
for 4 years, so now that we are selling it we are trying to do four years’
worth of updates in a few short weeks. We are hoping to have it listed by this
Saturday! It has been crazy.
Are you sad to leave
Phoenix? Yes! That has been something that is really hard because we have
loved it here. We love our house, our friends, our neighborhood, my gym, our
ward, the weather, the proximity to family, etc.
How are you feeling
about all of this, Jessica? It’s been an emotional roller coaster. I’ve
known that there was a high likelihood of this outcome for about three months
now, so I have really had time to run the entire gamut of emotions. I feel like
the five stages of loss- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance –
really apply here. I still have high and low days, but overall I’m in a good
place now and am so proud of Scooter (and me too!) for being brave enough to
take this step into the unknown. This whole experience has built my faith more
than almost any other experience of my life, so I am grateful for that.
I want to talk to
Scooter about this! My Instagram account is basically the only social media
that either of us use, so many of his colleagues and friends are hearing about
our decision because we've linked
Overall, we are so grateful and excited that Scooter is
getting a chance to pursue something he is really passionate about. It feels
like this course correction has finally gotten us on the right path. We are
excited to see what the future has in store for us!
