When otolaryngologists leave clinical practice to pursue other vocations, the reasons for making the move vary, as do the factors that might have prevented the transition. Here, several otolaryngologists who have pursued different career paths, from writing to working at or even founding healthcare-related companies, tell their unique stories.
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December 2024Anthony Chin-Quee, MD, who practiced as a board-certified otolaryngologist for three years after residency, knew within the first few months that he did not love his job. “I couldn’t see myself being happy with the monotony of the clinic–OR schedule for the rest of my career, and the options for advancement within my organization didn’t interest me,” he said. “I thought perhaps I needed a change of pace, and so I took interviews at other practices and academic institutions, but either couldn’t find the right fit or wasn’t offered a position.”
Taking the Leap
“Even though I hadn’t quite figured out what my next job would be, I put my notice in a few months prior to leaving and decided to take a leap of faith,” Dr. Chin-Quee said. He works as a television writer, was a medical consultant for “Grey’s Anatomy,” and is the author of I Can’t Save You: A Memoir. “I was nearly sucked into staying for reasons of ‘security,’” he said. “I realized that the most pressing issues were my mental health and quality of life. What use was future ‘stability’ if I was going to need to be miserable to achieve it?”
Casey Means, MD, quit her five-year ENT surgical residency a few months before completion. Soon after meeting a patient with recurrent sinus infections that were not responding to treatment, I felt “an overwhelming conviction that I couldn’t cut into another patient until I figured out why—despite the monumental size and scope of our healthcare system—the patients and people around me were sick in the first place,” wrote Dr. Means in her 2024 book Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health. The New York Times bestseller explains metabolic dysfunction as the connecting point between most major chronic diseases, including many of those seen in ENT practice.
“The healthcare system needs major reform to be functional and to generate better outcomes for Americans, and I couldn’t continue working in a system that fundamentally profits off illness rather than prevention,” she explained.
After leaving residency, Dr. Means trained in nutritional biochemistry, cell biology, and functional medicine, opened a medical practice, and served on faculty at Stanford University teaching about food, technology, and design. She is the co-founder of Levels, a company providing metabolic health data to customers via continuous glucose monitors to empower better dietary and lifestyle habits.
For Anya Miller, MD, the decision to leave ENT clinical practice after seven years was multifactorial, including changed priorities after becoming a parent, combined with childcare issues and working in an unstable practice environment compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You are very reliant on referrals,” Dr. Miller explained. During the COVID-19 pandemic, surgeries were halted and clinical volumes decreased. She added, “I found I was getting more and more anxious about doing surgery.”
Dr. Miller, who now works as a field medical director at Evolent, decided that she needed a new job that would fit with daycare hours, enabling her to be available for her children, remove her family’s dependence on a nanny, allow her to sleep at night rather than worrying about patients, and provide financial stability.
After looking intermittently for other jobs for a while, “I started to look in earnest about one year before I finally left. I took odd jobs here and there to gain experience in other fields adjacent to medicine,” Dr. Miller explained.
Making the Decision
Leaving clinical practice was a tough decision for Dr. Miller. “You are taught that the only path in medicine is clinical medicine. I didn’t think I was qualified to do anything else,” Dr. Miller said. You wonder why you did all this training and, as a surgeon, she explained, you must be ready to give up surgery entirely. “Once your case numbers drop to zero after two years, you will be unable to obtain privileges to do surgery and will need to be supervised for each surgery before being able to do them again.”
The decision to leave clinical practice was not so tough for Dr. Chin-Quee. “Once I made my decision, I felt a profound relief,” he said. “I always felt myself to be a bit of an outsider as far as the typical medical personality type; being a doctor was not as enmeshed into my identity as it might be for some of my colleagues, and so it was relatively easy to let it go.”
For Donald Gonzales, MD, leaving clinical ENT practice after two years was an easy decision. He serves as the founder, chief medical officer, and director of Cryosa, a medical device company developing treatment for patients with sleep-disordered breathing.
I was nearly sucked into staying for reasons of ‘security.’ I realized that the most pressing issues were my mental health and quality of life. What use was future ‘stability’ if I was going to need to be miserable to achieve it? —Anthony Chin-Quee, MD