Career Assessments Align Professional, Personal Goals

“By resilience, I mean that there is always going to be some relevance to what you’re doing and you’re going to be able to weather some of the [health care] changes,” Dr. Gaillour said. “With a lot of physician groups and hospitals coming together and the stress of new initiatives, mergers, integrations, electronic medical records and accountable care organizations, all of that has a direct impact on physicians.”

Dr. Derkay suggests that otolaryngologists speak to their mentors to glean career assessment insight. “We pride ourselves as a specialty on being open to mentorship, to mentoring students and residents during their training, then maintaining those relationships over years,” Dr. Derkay said. “People I mentored 20 years ago still call me for advice, including advice on changing jobs, moving to a different part of a country or reviewing a new contract.” He added that, chances are, a mentor will know someone who has been in a similar situation and will be able to help evaluate the pros and cons of the career change you may be considering. “The older generation really tries to help the younger generation wade through these challenges,” Dr. Derkay said.

If you are considering a career outside of the immediate medical sphere in which you work, however, locating a mentor can be a challenge, said Russell Faust, PhD, MD. Dr. Faust was a pediatric otolaryngologist at the St. John Providence Hospital and Medical Center Michigan in Southfield, Mich. “About five years ago, my back began to become an issue during surgery,” Dr. Faust said. “I was performing up to 20 surgeries a week; my back couldn’t sustain it.”

Luckily, options other than surgery were open to Dr. Faust. A self-proclaimed “tech-geek,” he had been running a blog intended to keep his patients and their parents informed, and to his surprise, the site took off. “The things I’m most passionate about are teaching, research, technology and patient care,” Dr. Faust said. “If I had to leave surgery, I wanted to find ways to satisfy most of these aspects.” But, Dr. Faust said, the difficulty is in finding mentors outside of clinical medicine to help make a dramatic career change. Therefore, he focused on building his professional network. “Even if you’re just considering a change outside of academic medicine, you need to start building up that professional network,” he said, recommending that physicians connect on sites such as LinkedIn. “One of the smartest things I ever did was partner up with people in the business world,” he added.

The Time Is Right

Recommendations vary on how often career assessments should be conducted. “Although there’s no set formula, it’s reasonable on a five-year basis to look yourself in the mirror and make sure you’re on the path you want to be on,” said Dr. Derkay. “But if you’re waking up in the morning and not excited to go to work, you should think about an assessment tomorrow.”