Change

So I'm changing things up for myself.

When I finished residency, you may remember that I was pretty much done with medicine but still needed to earn a living in order to pay off our debts.  I chose urgent care because I needed something that was simple in terms of the mechanics of the job and emotionally undemanding in terms of the patient care required.  I think urgent care is pretty much the pinnacle of that.  See patient, make 1-2 decisions regarding care, discharge patient, write short note.  Move on.  No call, no critically ill patients (most of the time), minimal paperwork, few moving parts.  The hiring process went very smoothly.  But for some reason that I barely understood given that I felt like I was aiming to get out of medicine altogether, I threw in an ask in my interview: I wanted to do a little work in my local ED if they were amenable to that.  It turned out they were.

For the past year and a half, my schedule has been gradually transforming.  Initially I was truly just an urgent care doc, which was fine.  After a bit I oriented in my local ED and felt a little glimmer of interest.  They liked me.  I started to pick up a handful of shifts a month there.  After a few months of that, they asked if I could be one of their main backup people.  I said yes, but with some trepidation.  The work is hard, you know?  I wasn't sure I was really up to hard work if I didn't have to be.

They continued to like me, and as I started to rack up nights of good sleep and days that I didn't hate, I finally admitted to myself that I liked being there.  For about six months my schedule was split evenly between the two locations.

Finally this past winter I realised that I am starting to get bored with my urgent care shifts.  It has nothing to do with the urgent care!  It remains a good job with lovely people and very nice hours.  But I do feel that I've ascended the learning curve there; the only things which are challenging now are cases which would be unusual in any setting, or that draw on areas of medicine that I don't practice.  And I feel that I'm ready to do more.  I'm ready to start really caring for people again as my daily work.  So I made another big ask of my group, and again they said yes.

Starting in May, I'll be working in the ED full time and only filling in at the urgent care sporadically.
I'm hesitant to even tell anyone about it, much less Formally Announce it.  What if I somehow mess it up?  What if I hate it and change back?  I've even minimized it in my own mind, a sure sign that it's actually a big deal but I'm afraid of the change.  But people are meant to share happy events in their lives, right?  And I'm happy, so I'm sharing.  Don't get me wrong; I'm terrified to invest, to commit.  It's hard for me to take this emotional risk.  But I think it's time.

I think.

Maybe.