Do you want to leave clinical medicine, but you feel guilty?

Your feelings are shared by many physicians who want to leave clinical medicine.

Even though you know guilt is not a reason to stay, it can be challenging to let it go.

If this is true for you,

consider this 4-step approach:

1. Recognize the voice of guilt.

Do any of these thoughts and feelings sound familiar?

“Leaving = abandoning my patients or colleagues.”

“The clinic/practice is understaffed. I really should stay.”

“I try to be helpful and answer support staff and trainees’ texts even when I’m not on-call.”

How do you feel when a patient says, “Doctor, you aren’t planning on leaving, are you? You’re the best doctor I’ve ever had!”?

2. Recognize your strengths underlying the guilt.

If you’re prone to feeling guilty, you likely have several strengths, including:

Taking care of others is second nature for you.

You are skilled at identifying what people need from across a room.

You are compassionate and connect easily with others.

AND these strengths are often accompanied by:

Exhaustion.

Resentment and sometimes anger.

Feeling like people take advantage of your good nature.

3. Recognize your own needs.

What need within you are you trying to meet by being available to others, even when you don’t want to or you don’t have the energy?

It might be the need for love and belonging.

How else can you meet that need?

4. Recognize and honor the importance of also taking care of yourself.

If you’re someone who tends to put others’ needs above your own, it may feel selfish to do what it takes to care for yourself. But the reality is, if you don’t take care of your own needs, the caring becomes non-sustainable and sometimes, accompanied by resentment.

Taking care of yourself could be anything from taking a brief alone break at work to recharge, setting healthy boundaries, Saying No, taking a break from your job, or leaving clinical medicine entirely.

Reminder: “Place the oxygen mask on yourself first. Then help someone else to put on their mask.”

What becomes possible for you, your health, and your family if you cared for yourself the way you care for others?

To release guilt, recognize how it shows up for you and how it can be the shadow side of a strength. Figure out how to meet your own need for care and love so that you’re not trapped in a cycle of giving and doing for others that’s no longer serving you.