Forget ‘the great resignation’ – in healthcare it’s ‘the great reinvention’!

You’ve probably heard talk about ‘the great resignation’ happening in many industries across the world, with large numbers of people reassessing their work and priorities in the wake of COVID lockdowns and leaving their jobs in record numbers. I see something quite different happening in healthcare, and it started well before the pandemic. I call it ‘the great reinvention’. 

While some healthcare workers are leaving their jobs, increasing numbers of workers are instead diversifying their career paths. They’re starting businesses, writing books, entering academia or becoming public speakers, for example. After all, healthcare professionals have a wealth of transferrable skills, like problem-solving, organising, leading, communicating and negotiating – all of which are useful outside of treating patients. 

The rapid growth of Creative Careers in Medicine – the organisation I co-founded to help Aussie health professionals forge unique career paths – in recent years indicates the great reinvention of healthcare workers is likely to continue. 

Reducing burnout

Your grandfather probably worked for the same company his whole life, but today most people change their jobs around 10-15 times across their working lives. That hasn’t been happening in medicine, though, where the traditional path is still specialising in one specific area and staying there until retirement. No wonder doctors get burnt out and want to leave the field – they’re doing the same (generally high-stress) job with long hours and often poor working conditions. 

I can attest to the fact that having variety in your work can create sustainability. Being able to utilise other parts of your brain – even if just on some days of the week – and explore other interests is likely to lead to a more satisfied workforce overall that does not get burnt out doing the same thing for years on end. 

New opportunities

Graduates nowadays are often older, have had other careers, studied other degrees before medicine or have a completely different view on life, and they don’t see the traditional path in medicine as their only option after a medical degree. Many want to solve complex problems in the health system so they move into management consulting, medical management or administration; others are entrepreneurial-minded and are keen to make an impact by building businesses in healthcare. Some clinicians were never interested in seeing patients and instead snapped up opportunities to get into academia, research or teaching. 

And with the rise of non-traditional entrants into healthcare, such as banks or technology companies (think: Google, IBM, Amazon, Facebook and even Walmart), there are much more opportunities for doctors to be employed by companies outside of hospitals and clinics. 

The increase of technology use in healthcare, too, has created a whole new area of medicine for doctors to get involved in. Whether they’re interested in start-ups or want to work for a technology company providing medical advisory services to help roll-out an electronic medical record system across a hospital, there are plenty of new and emerging roles for doctors. 

For healthcare professionals who want to reinvent themselves professionally, there’s never been a better time to take the leap – you never know, you may just fly.

To find out more about Creative Careers in Medicine, click here.