NCAFP COMMITTEES
Member Satisfaction and Practice Environment By: Brent Hazelett, MPA, CAE NCAFP Senior Vice President and COO
~ CAREER TRANSITIONS ~
The Seasons of Family Medicine Are you happy? Are you practicing the type of medicine you always dreamed of practicing? Are you positively influencing the lives of your patients? Or are you a cog in a massive machine that continually demands more of you? Are you struggling to juggle your professional and personal life? Do you feel trapped?
Recently, the NCAFP’s Member Satisfaction and Practice Environment Committee met and throughout the course of the meeting, several committee members discussed their recent career transitions. Several members noted how great it is that Family Medicine as a specialty is relatively unique because one can make multiple transitions throughout the course of one’s career. Thus, the idea of this article was born. What season are you in with your career, and is it time to make a change? If so, you are far from alone. After speaking with five North Carolina family physicians about their careers, and their recent and very diverse career transitions, there are several prominent themes and similarities to their journeys. Perhaps some of this will resonate with you. In a time when physician wellness is finally increasingly discussed, even without a pandemic that is overtaxing the healthcare system, the NCAFP wants our members to know that if your current season of family medicine is not 20
where you want to be, perhaps it is time for a change of season, and there are colleagues out there who can help. This is exactly what happened with Tom White, MD, who after attending an NCAFP Winter Meeting, realized it was time to make a change. According to Dr. White, “my lowest point professionally was when I came to the realization that I was no longer happy being a family physician; that my workload and task load was intolerable, that I had lost the time and enthusiasm for listening to the patient, and that my employer and I did not share my value that the patient should be the center and focus of what we call health care.” Dr. White returned home from that meeting and submitted his resignation and a year later, opened his own Direct Primary Care practice. As an increasing percentage of graduating Family Medicine residents sign their first employment with a large health system, we are also seeing some of those health system employees become frustrated. After 11 years with her first employer, Dr. Talia Aron did not know what change was next, but she knew it was time for something different. Frustrated with her repeatedly failed attempts to make changes from within, after self-reflection and feedback from her friends, she realized she was putting patients and charting before her personal life. “Being a mother, a wife, a friend and a physician should not be mutually exclusive, commented Dr. Aron. “If you are like me, hard-headed, it might take a few years to figure this out, and that’s okay. But when you do finally hit that wall, go for it. There will always be a need for good family physicians, and you WILL find another job.” Dr. Aron is taking a year to figure out what is next, and while she does that, is working full-time in telemedicine. Realizing work-life balance is completely out of whack
The North Carolina Family Physician
