AN INTRODUCTION

I am a physician, trained and board-certified in Emergency Medicine. For the last almost 10 years I have been working in a traditional emergency department. For a myriad of reasons that I won’t get into here (we can save that for another day) I am completely burnt out and in need of change. I almost left clinical medicine altogether and have now decided to leave the traditional emergency medicine model with a career change to urgent care. I am hopeful that this change in practice and clinical setting will allow me to stay in clinical medicine for many years to come.

My husband and I have been together for 17 years and married for 11. We deeply wanted to be parents and were heartbroken when we could not get pregnant. We are fortunate to live in an area with an amazing fertility practice and after 2 years of trying all the things we finally got pregnant with our first child. We thought for sure we would need IVF again if we wanted to expand our family but unexpectedly we had a surprise pregnancy with boy number two! We now have two very active young boys who keep us busy and exhausted. They will be the subject matter of many posts to come, I'm sure.

Like many others in the world I was significantly impacted by the COVID pandemic. I was 22 weeks pregnant with my second child when COVID hit so I faced my own challenges and fear working in an emergency department during that time. We spent months at first with a significant decline in patient volume, which meant cut hours and cut pay. Shortly after that we were overwhelmed for months at a time, stretched thin, watching horrors unfold daily, seeing people dying scared and isolated from their families. Then we started seeing the secondary impact of the pandemic and lockdowns. Significant increases in substance abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, mental health crises. People were unable to get any outpatient appointments for months so they were coming to us to try to get help more quickly, which we often were not able to provide because we were already stretched so thin. Healthcare underwent a drastic change very quickly. I realized that I too had undergone a drastic change. I needed out and I also needed something else but I wasn't entirely sure what that was.

I have spent many years in school and training to become a doctor. I found myself asking, "what else is there for me to do besides exactly what I was trained to do? What else can I offer? I have no other skills." For a long time my answer was "nothing." It took going to conferences for non-clinical careers for physicians, lots of networking, mastermind classes, journaling, and generally exploring to realize that there is a lot I can do not just instead of medicine but in conjunction with medicine. I attended a talk by a woman who has created a wonderful portfolio career for herself and the biggest thing she said that has stuck with me was "decide what your ideal life looks like and work backwards from there."

I guess it sounds simple now but at the time it was a major breakthrough for me. I want what most of us want, more time with my family and more control over my time and my life in general. It sounds unattainable but I believe it's achievable. No longer will I be dependent on a single employer for my paycheck. I will create alternative income streams and try to carve out a path to give myself and my family more financial freedom. This is the start of that journey .

Since I left my job I have started a new business with another one in the works. I am partnered with a publicly traded company that is expanding the distribution of breakthrough technologies that slow the aging process down at a cellular level on the inside and on the outside of the body. Pretty cool and exciting stuff! You can learn more about that here. I am looking into various courses to continue to expand my knowledge as well as my businesses.

I am currently on a break between jobs (I like to call it “funemployment”) and am enjoying having more time with my family. I have been able to go back to my CrossFit gym regularly and reconnect with people there as well as make new friends. I have started taking on home renovation projects and posting those pictures to social media with a surprisingly enthusiastic response from my friends, further inspiring this blog to document some of those projects.

I have always wanted to write a blog and have recently been inspired to do so. Here I plan to share things about motherhood, relationships, balancing a career with parenting, health, wellness, fitness, home improvement/DIY projects, and life in general. I am excited to go on this journey and to share it with all of you. I hope you enjoy!