Medical Divorce

You know how once you hear about something, or begin thinking about something, you start seeing it everywhere?  Well, once I decided to quit my career and branch out into the unknown, I started meeting people right and left who had made career changes.  All of them were incredibly encouraging, and much happier with their lives post-change, even though the process of change itself was stressful and challenging. 

It came down to this:  I chose my own happiness and my relationship with my husband over my career.  Okay, it was not even nearly that simple, but it's a good place to start.  I had reached the point where I realized that if I wanted to stay a) sane, and b) married, I could not stay in this career.  And once I realized this, I started seeing it echoed everywhere I looked.  I met a luxury vacation planner who used to be an attorney.  I met a massage therapist who used to be a military engineer.  I met a yoga teacher who used to be a mortgage banker.  A friend of mine got married and moved to a different country to be with her husband, leaving behind her just-taking-off business.  These were the stories that, once upon a time, would have made me say, "are they crazy?"  But one and all, they are happier now.

Even magazines and books I pick up remind me I made the right decision.  Just last week, I was reading about the physician at OHSU that developed Gleevec, the miracle-drug that has saved the lives of thousands of CML (chronic myeloid leukemia) patients.  His first marriage was a casualty of his career.  He states, "I wasn't what you would call a devoted husband.  I was a devoted researcher and scientist and physician.  And that took a toll."  Obviously, the thousands of people who have avoided the death sentence of CML are grateful that he is such a dedicated scientist.  Clearly, we need people like him in the world.  But I don't feel the need to be one of them.

Sacrificing one's relationship on the altar of career just isn't for me.  When I went into medicine, I honestly never thought I was going to meet the right person and get married.  So why not throw myself into this career?  But it's not just about spending quality time with my husband.  What if I'd never met him?  What if I were still single - would I still have quit?  I'd like to think so.  The fact that this career was wrong for me on so many levels remains, regardless of whether I am married or single. It may have taken me longer to get to the point where I was ready to quit without that support at home, but I do believe I would eventually have "seen the light",  realized how unhappy I was, and made the decision to make a change.

I just finished reading Michael Crichton's first book, A Case of Need.  Originally published under a pseudonym, it revolves around illegal abortion (published in 1968), and is a decent noir-ish medical mystery, although it got more than a bit implausible at the end.  There were lots of interesting themes running through it - how doctors stick together, for one - the "old boy's club", as it were.  How a physician is vilified for making a human error, for another (the author doesn't seem to have insight into this one, but it caught my eye and grated).  But what really grabbed my attention were the throwaway comments he made about doctors' relationships.  He refers to the abbreviation M.D. as standing for Medical Divorce.  (see above re: wanting to stay married!)  He describes one doctor thus:  "He has a surgeon's view of right and wrong.  He sees only black and white, day and night.  No gray.  No twilight."  Black and white thinking - a topic I addressed on this blog only last week!

But the passage that really got my attention was this:  "Certainly he is bitter toward his profession.  Many doctors are, for various reasons ... I suppose in any profession you meet men who despise themselves and their colleagues.  But Art is an extreme example.  It is almost as if he went into medicine to spite himself, to make himself unhappy and angry and sad."  I could relate to this last sentence in a big way.  I've hinted on this blog about how I didn't feel I deserved happiness, and I am writing a lot about that in my book-in-progress.   But I don't think I'd seen it written down anywhere else.  That you can choose a profession in order to guarantee that you will not be happy.  Clearly not a conscious decision, but a decision nonetheless.  Once I woke up to it, I decided that I didn't want to stick around long enough to "despise myself and my colleagues".  I didn't want to look back thirty years from now and wish I'd made a change...

Now is the time for change!  Now is the time for happiness!  Okay, Universe, I get the message!  Now, if you can just start sending some how-to-be-fabulously-wealthy clues my way....