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Top 10 ways to know it’s time to quit your job as a doctor

Pamela Wible, MD
Physician
August 21, 2014
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Attention all doctors: The first three are mine. The rest are from miserable colleagues. All true. And common. If you’re a doctor and you recognize anything on this list, please quit your job.

10. You feel nauseated when you see your clinic logo; you alter your commute to avoid streets with your clinic’s billboard.

9. Discouraged by the general despair among staff, you try to be joyful. Then you’re reprimanded by the clinic manager for being “excessively happy.”

8. You dream of leaving medicine to work as a waitress.

7. You envy your sickest patients and/or you develop a perverse pleasure in your patients’ pain.

6. You pray you will be diagnosed with cancer so you can get some time to sleep.

5. You spend your nights trying to keep patients alive while you imagine ways to die by suicide.

4. You work 16 to 24-hour shifts and have not had sex with your spouse in months.

3. You’re a top-rated doctor, yet you daydream about walking into traffic, jumping through the window, or just dying in the course of a normal day.

2. You are counting down the days until retirement during patient appointments.

1. You change your computer password to “f*ck [name of hospital where you work]!!!”

If you’re a doctor, join the physician teleseminar and learn how you can stop suffering and start practicing real medicine.

Pamela Wible pioneered the community-designed ideal medical clinic and blogs at Ideal Medical Care. She is the author of Pet Goats and Pap Smears. Watch her TEDx talk, How to Get Naked with Your Doctor. 

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  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • When shared decision making gives way to medical paternalism

      DeAnna Pollock, MD | Physician
    • How xenotransplantation could finally solve organ shortages

      Rafael S. Garcia-Cortes, MD | Conditions
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      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Why early detection technology and precision medicine are failing patients

      Julie Chen, MD | Physician
    • The silent patient experience in the exam room

      Michele Luckenbaugh | Conditions
    • Closing the execution reliability gap in health care systems

      Katherine Owen, RN | Conditions
  • Past 6 Months

    • Why clinicians fail at writing expert reports

      Tracy Liberatore, Esq, PA | Conditions
    • Rethinking the role of family physicians vs. specialists

      Ronald L. Lindsay, MD | Physician
    • How hindsight bias distorts clinical medicine

      Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD | Physician
    • The cost of time constraints in primary care: Why doctors feel rushed

      Ann Lebeck, MD | Physician
    • Health insurance incentives and alternatives to opioids for chronic pain

      Molly Candon, PhD and Daniel Clauw, MD | Conditions
    • Why Florida physician background checks are driving doctors away

      Tamzin A. Rosenwasser, MD | Physician
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Top 10 ways to know it’s time to quit your job as a doctor
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