Has anyone here gone non-clinical?

[zeppelinpage4]

So I’ve been feeling a little burned out in general pediatrics. We see 27-30 patients a day with forms, patient calls, and labs to deal with in between, work two weekends a month, take evening phone call one a week and those 9-11 hours at work feel like a sprint, I barely get 10-15 minutes to eat my lunch. Several docs have left my practice due to the workload. I interviewed at other gen peds jobs in my area but they don’t seem much better and I don’t want to be a hospitalist. I’ve considered leaving clinical medicine all together but haven’t spoken to any pediatricians who did.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone pursued non-clinical work with success and made a transition partially or fully away from clinic work? If so, was it worth it and an improvement from clinical work in either pay or lifestyle? How did you go about making that transition and what did you pursue? I’m genuinely curious and would be cool to know what else is out there.

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[SurfingDoctor]

So I’ve been feeling a little burned out in general pediatrics. We see 27-30 patients a day with forms, patient calls, and labs to deal with in between, work two weekends a month, take evening phone call one a week and those 9-11 hours at work feel like a sprint, I barely get 10-15 minutes to eat my lunch. Several docs have left my practice due to the workload. I interviewed at other gen peds jobs in my area but they don’t seem much better and I don’t want to be a hospitalist. I’ve considered leaving clinical medicine all together but haven’t spoken to any pediatricians who did.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone pursued non-clinical work with success and made a transition partially or fully away from clinic work? If so, was it worth it and an improvement from clinical work in either pay or lifestyle? How did you go about making that transition and what did you pursue? I’m genuinely curious and would be cool to know what else is out there.

I people I know went and got an MBA or MHA and work for administration or pharma, respectively.

 

[Pedsdoc13]

Many friends of mine have gone into industry, they are all heme/onc trained with experience in clinical trials or basic scientists. With your degree, you 100% can pivot. You should be happy no matter what.

 

[mvenus929]

If you still enjoy the clinical medicine, one way to help is to have your own practice--you can set the schedule and processes how you see fit, rather than relying on an administrator to do so. But, you also have to get savvy with some business sense (including billing and collections) and have to be willing to be the HR person for any employees that you hire.

 

[zeppelinpage4]

I people I know went and got an MBA or MHA and work for administration or pharma, respectively.

Interesting, I hadn’t thought of getting a masters. Do you know if the added masters pretty common and recommended for docs going over to those industries? Might be nice way to get some added experience, networkong and background that we don’t get as full clinicians.

Many friends of mine have gone into industry, they are all heme/onc trained with experience in clinical trials or basic scientists. With your degree, you 100% can pivot. You should be happy no matter what.

Thanks, glad to hear that. I would love to still use my degree and medical background but the traditional clinical roles don’t seem to be a good fit right now.

If you still enjoy the clinical medicine, one way to help is to have your own practice--you can set the schedule and processes how you see fit, rather than relying on an administrator to do so. But, you also have to get savvy with some business sense (including billing and collections) and have to be willing to be the HR person for any employees that you hire.

Thanks, this is actually something I should explore a bit more. I looked into private practices near the end of my residency but the pressure of keeping the practice viable and trying to manage the business aspects scared me away. The few docs I spoke to at the time also were seeing pretty high volumes to maintain the income they needed and had much less support staff than the hospital owned ones. But I am almost 2 years out now and getting a little more comfortable on the clinical side of things so I may be in a better place to learn the business aspect and see if I could do a viable practice on my terms.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

Interesting, I hadn’t thought of getting a masters. Do you know if the added masters pretty common and recommended for docs going over to those industries? Might be nice way to get some added experience, networkong and background that we don’t get as full clinicians.

The admin person was already starting to get into admin, they just used the masters to shore up their role in the medical center so they could climb the ladder and tap out of clinical time. The pharma person got an MBA and quit their job and worked for pharma right away via a paid internship and then they were retained by the company.

I don’t know how common it is, but most people who want to go into admin have a masters degree so for that particular path, it’s very common.

 

[thetubes]

Many friends of mine have gone into industry, they are all heme/onc trained with experience in clinical trials or basic scientists. With your degree, you 100% can pivot. You should be happy no matter what.

I feel like that happens a lot in Peds Heme onc. I think it's a feature of burnout, significant exposure to the non-clinical aspects of the field, relative scarcity of jobs. That being said one the nastiest people I've encountered on my medical career journey was a pediatric heme onc doctor who ended up going into industry. He had the disposition of a disgruntled surgical residency program director. He definitely dissuaded or scared away quite a few of my classmates from going into pediatrics and probably hurt the career development of who knows how many residents/students. This is a sad joke now considering he is no longer in academic medicine nor is he even practicing.