February 2017: Second day on service in months, and already I feel wiped. It’s exhausting. I feel that it is meaningful but so draining. And still, I’m not sure that I am even doing a good job.
A month later, I came home from a multi-level marketing (MLM) party at a colleague’s house, announcing my excited plans to embark on a new venture. I was going to start selling MLM skin products so I could make enough money to quit my job. My husband looked at me with concern.
I was 31 years old, nine months into my first job as an academic pediatric hospitalist. I had a one- and four-year-old at home and a spouse working full-time in public schools. I had started this job excitedly. In fact, it was the only one I applied to. I was doing community work I had fantasized about. And yet, all I wanted was an escape.
I never joined that MLM, recognizing instead that it was freedom and alignment I sought, not a job selling makeup (I don’t even wear makeup!). I discovered the term for my condition: burnout. And like a good doer, I set out to fix things. Mentors helped; I decreased my non-essential commitments, took some of the vacation days I had hoarded all year, and stopped taking moonlighting shifts. I meditated, read books, and journaled my values. My husband went part-time and took on more of the home responsibilities.
I felt better, for sure. But something still nagged. I dreaded going on service each week. I would get through rounds, then run to my office, shut the door, and sit alone in the quiet. Each day after service, I would enter the house like a zombie mom, going through the motions and hoping everyone would JUST GO TO SLEEP.
That journal entry wasn’t the last time I wrote about my internal conflict. I kept writing, over and over, about how much my job was making me unhappy. But then, I’d reflect on the good parts. Maybe I needed more mindfulness. More gratitude. Maybe it was me that was wrong.
Grieving my identity
On the first day of 2019, I went to a yoga class with my best friend. It was new to me to do something meaningful on New Year’s Day. In my 20s, the day had been spent hungover, maybe watching football. That had fallen away with babies and the joy of a good night’s sleep. But this year, I also suspect a part of me was searching for a different way to be and approach life. Plus, it was one of her favorite teachers, so I went along.
A month earlier, while on service, I had written in my journal, “already irritable, low emotional reserve.” I was brainstorming how to find meaning in my pediatric hospital medicine job: health disparities, research on hospital-to-home outcomes, and integrative medicine fellowship. I was trying SO HARD to make it work. Thinking if I just found the right project or mindset, I would learn to love the work. Maybe if I meditated more, I would find a way to be with what is.
Something happened during that yoga class. The sun shone through the white-trimmed windows; the snow sparkled on the ground outside. The light, airy, and energetic room of yogis. The teacher led us through movement, stillness, and reading poems and quotes that I don’t remember. But it alchemized, peeling away layers of protection inside me, a rush of feelings—sadness, guilt, truth.
I exited at the end of class, tears streaming. How could I not love being a doctor? What kind of person was I? Who was I if not this? How could I not love medicine? (At least not the way I was doing it.) My personal identity and worth were woven into my professional identity. Being a doctor was a service, a sense of duty and obligation to do something in the world. To not want that felt … selfish.
“The world loved my doing. But the more the world applauded, the more my soul ached.”
– Jerry Colonna
The freedom of honesty
The day after my yoga class, I committed to leaving my pediatric hospital medicine role. It was amazing to see how things shifted after this. My boss shared with me that someone had been looking to join our team, and I realized that in staying stuck, I was also keeping someone else from an opportunity they really wanted. Perhaps having someone in that role who loved what they did was a service to the patients.
In letting go of the belief that I was meant to be a doctor, that I had to be one to be worthwhile, contribute, and be good, I opened a small window in myself. A space to ponder. To listen. I forgave myself for not living up to the expectations of loving a medical career. For wanting to be with my kids and garden. I practiced letting go of expectation and allowing what I felt and wanted. A practice I would forget, try again, forget, try again.
Six months later, during my last week on service, I enjoyed myself. Freeing myself from the pressure of being stuck in that role, I appreciated the parts that I did love: offering a patient and compassionate presence to scared or sad parents, connecting with learners, and playing with babies as I examined them. Now, I continue to be curious about how to move toward the things I love doing in the world, in and outside of medicine. And I see that there are so many ways to be a healer, to contribute, and to do good in the world. I only had to get unstuck to see it.
Sarah Webber is a pediatrician.
