Yesterday, I made a lifetime timeline. I highly recommend that you do this because you need to figure out how you want medicine to fit into (or enhance) all your other dreams and desires. I remember my dean saying to us, during our orientation, that she always asks her medical school interviewees what they want to do with their lives. Why? “Because if they don’t plan it, they won’t do it.”
After making my timeline early in the morning before my day of psychiatry, I sat down with my fiancee that night and talked about it. Here were some of our considerations:
Travel
It’s very important to me that we have the opportunity to travel. I grew up travelling the world with my family, and I get jittery if don’t have an occasional chance to embark on an adventure and do some photography and writing. Brian wants to be “portable”, too: as a hospitalist, urgent care doctor, or something of that sort so that we can pick up and move easily, as needed. Jobs with shift work are the best for travel, like hospitalist and emergency medicine.
The options for medical travel are also endless: medical mission work (something we have both dreamed of), cruise ship medicine, and short-term loan forgiveness stints in rural areas of the United States are just a few of the available options.
Traveling with medicine is easiest with something versatile like family or emergency medicine. But the opportunities are also there for specialists like ophalmology, with programs like Unite for Sight.
Doctors Without Borders, for example, put out this plea:
“As for MDs, we are looking for those with training in pediatrics, infectious disease, tropical medicine, or HIV and TB, and those who have worked with vulnerable patient populations in the past,” she says. “To staff our surgical projects, we need general and orthopedic surgeons as well as anesthesiologists and CRNAs. We are also looking for epidemiologists, lab technicians, and pharmacists.”
We agree that we would both like to travel after residency; unfortunately, we both have school loans hanging over our heads. So, at the very least, we will need to both be “portable” so that after we do pay off our loans, we can take off. Or at least we can go when we are approaching retirement….one way or another, we will travel!
Shout out to:
-Global Medical Staffing
-Doctors Without Borders, and
-Health Volunteers Overseas
These are all great organizations that can help you jumpstart your life of global medical service.
Family
We are not 100% certain that we want children, yet. We’re both in the “selfish” phase, and are living out our 3-year long engagement to the fullest, as a carefree couple! However, if we have children, I for one will want to be a kick-ass Mother, which means that I might want to work part-time (see the “Half-Time” post for more information). If we have children, no matter how much I may adore medicine–my family will come first. Naturally, fields with great hours for family include: allergy and immunology, dermatology, radiology, psychiatry, family medicine, and ophalmology.
Many of my preceptors say that they regret not seeing their children grow up. I just can’t live with that kind of regret so in choosing a specialty, I want to find a field that will make it easy to find a practice group that will allow me to work part-time. Many hospitals encourage hospitalists who only want to work part-time to apply because they are usually more willing to work difficult shifts and holidays. I also don’t want to be so mentally exhausted that I am unable to be there emotionally and physically for my children and my (soon-to-be) husband, so specialties that require strenuous call and erratic hours like OB-GYN and surgery are not on my list.
“Wearing other Hats”
Like so many of you out there, I like to do…everything!! I’m a writer. I’m active in my church, and would like to one day lead a Sunday school class or church volunteer group. I love running 5k’s and participating in fitness classes, and I wouldn’t mind training to be a group instructor one day! I’m an active volunteer with Make-A-Wish and Hospice, and I get restless if I stop. As I mentioned earlier, I like to travel and write about my adventures. I like to sing in choir. I do hand-bells, for crying out loud! (I didn’t just admit that, did I?…) Someday, I want to give back and teach medical students. God forbid I ever get bored with life by just doing one thing. I’ve noticed that family med docs seem to be the most well-rounded bunch, at least at our school. They’re always active with students and embarking on new projects with the school and in the community.
As much as I love medicine, it does not fully define me. If I can’t wear those other hats, I just won’t feel like I’m being me.
Your Next Step: To figure out what you want in life, and consider making a lifetime timeline. We (hopefully) all love our career choice, and are blessed to be in this field. But your life is likely about more than your career. This will help you figure out what matters the most to you, outside of medicine, and will help you make a good choice on a specialty that accommodates your other dreams.
From Me to M.D. 