Are Claim Jumpers Stealing Your Time?

Radiologist and long-time friend to the blog Vagabond MD was recently interviewed on a podcast to describe his official transition out of clinical medicine last month. I highly recommend you allocate 32 minutes of your life to listen.

Vagabond outlined different considerations in his process - ranging from coming to terms with certain fantasies for a future career that he had to learn to let go, to acknowledging the impact that others' expectations had on his decisions. This last note resonated with me.

He even referred to an exercise he did with the interviewer (a physician who left dermatology to become a coach for other docs at a crossroads) to understand what forces were at play in his career decisions.

Few of us have the luxury of ignoring others' claims on our decisions, but all of us have the power to determine how strong those claims ought to be. In this spirit, I decided to undertake an exercise to examine all the different parties I could think of who might claim an interest in my career in medicine:

• My family's well-being (wife and kids)
• Parental expectations / pride
• Colleagues in the ED
• Societal expectations
• Close friendships / maintaining a sense of community
• Community (those who claim your professional standing as a signifier that a group you identify with has established a modicum of success)
• My ego (status)
• My financial security
• My well-being (mental health)
• My fitness (physical health)
• My hobbies / outside interests
• My sense of purpose / contribution

Next, I decided to weight each claim based on how much influence each should ideally exert over my work decisions.

1. Highest
   1. My family's well-being (wife and kids)
2. High
   1. My well-being (mental health)
   2. Colleagues in the ED (in the short term I am committed to helping our group manage crises, absences, illness, etc.)
   3. My sense of purpose / contribution
   4. My well-being (mental health)
3. Intermediate
   1. Colleagues in the ED (I don't feel under obligation to support long-term decisions that create an adverse work environment)
   2. My financial security
   3. My fitness (physical health - by working two decades of night shifts I've made explicit that this has not been my highest priority)
   4. Close friendships / maintaining a sense of community
4. Low
   1. Parental expectations / pride
   2. Societal expectations
   3. My ego (status)
   4. My hobbies / outside interests

In reviewing this list, it's informative to note that some claims that should ideally be placed in the low (parental expectations, ego) or middle (colleagues) tiers have likely exerted greater influence than they are due.

Others (my family) have not historically been as central to my decisions as they have deserved to be.

Consider undertaking a similar exercise if you are so inclined. Are the forces that deserve to be your highest priority are exerting their fair share of influence in your work decisions? Have they been unwittingly relegated to weaker status? Let me know in the comments!