Second Career After Medicine Dreams

As I fantasize about leaving medicine, I often get in my head about potential career alternatives to medicine. To an outsider, I may sound like an ungrateful weakling wanting to leave a career that provides a good stable “honorable” income. I don’t feel like defending my fantasy in detail, but in short, I’ve felt burnt out in a career where I’ve lost patient empathy and noticed it has taken a toll on my mental and physical health with the long hours and stressful nature of my field.

This post is to allow myself to dream about other career options, wanting to flesh out my thoughts on them. My therapist recommended that I figure out what I am drawn to, write the process out to see if it is worth it. I’ve been playing around with many different ideas for months, but now I want to get it down on paper. At this point, I have 4 top choices.

As I get to know myself more, I realize I want to be in a profession where I am working with other people and feel like I am helping out. I would like a low stress job that provides flexibility.

Option 1: Lifestyle Medicine Certification? I stumbled on the field of lifestyle medicine and have become very intrigued and drawn by it. It focuses on prevention and highlighting lifestyle changes to prevent and cure disease based on the six pillars of health. Obtaining the certification isn’t too terrible. It requires about 30hrs of lectures and studying, going to a conference, and passing a test. Seems like the whole process will cost about $3000 for the certification piece. However, I am not sure what I will do with this certification because I do not see patients in the clinic. Insurance reimbursement is low or nonexistent, so to get paying clients, I would have to create my own business model. I think I would primarily be interested in women’s health, but I would have to do my own marketing to find clients. But perhaps I could market to the private practice OBGYNs in my area. Or someone suggested I focus on kids and be a consultant for schools. I would likely have to pay for a service that sets my platform up.

Option 2: Be a health coach/wellness coach. I am interested in these topics, but would have to complete a coaching certification, which is also about $3000. Most of these careers also take off from marketing as well, which is another skill set I would have to learn. And not sure if I am ready to put myself out there.

Option 3: Community College Teacher. I found that this is one of the few teaching positions where you don’t actually need teaching credentials. Though it is one of the ways that provides stable income without the need to market myself. The pay is not great but perhaps enough, at the time we get closer to financial freedom.

Option 4: Financial planner. I have become very interested in finance, but perhaps some of it is too over my head. I would love to help other young professionals get a handle on their finances so that they can achieve the life they want. However, the barrier to entry seems high. I would have to undergo at a least a few years of schooling, take an exam, get hours of experience before I either work for someone or start my own business.

What are my next steps? Continue to talk to a therapist to decipher my actual desires in a career. Will I actually be in a better place mentally if I switch to one of these above options? I am taking a life planning class at a community college, perhaps that will be helpful.

In the meantime, I will keep working in order to meet our goals financially. Initially, I want to learn as much as I can while keeping my foot into the medicine door, until we are in the clear financially to pull the trigger to retire from medicine.