T-H-E-R-A-P-Y
Dear Prudence,
Growing up, my parents pushed me hard to achieve. It worked. I went to a letter school, qualified as a doctor, got a job in a busy hospital and have worked throughout the crisis. Today, I’m pushing 30, more than half a million dollars in debt, exhausted, and stuck in a misogynistic working environment where people treat me like dirt on a daily basis. By comparison, my brother ignored my parents completely, dropped out of school at 16, and is basically your classic stoner. He also started trading sneakers online when he was 12, graduated to BitCoin, and is now a millionaire many times over in his mid-20s. I know it’s wrong but I feel so resentful and jealous of him, and so angry with my parents for driving my career and life choices so hard. How do I get over this?
— Burned Out Achiever
Re: T-H-E-R-A-P-Y
The LW's path is a more tried and true method for earning a high income. They don't mention what type of doctor they are, but maybe a busy hospital isn't the best setting for them. Working for or opening up their own private practice might be less stressful and fewer hours.
Especially in Healthcare right now - wherever LW wants to go is hiring their specialty! There are so many places that will be better working environments for LW - Rural healthcare for example - people are more likely to be appreciative to HAVE a doctor that they don't have to travel an hour or more to see! Plus loan/tuition reimbursement/continuing ed. programs are fantastic in those hospitals/clinics! Heck, the bonus sign-on for an MD to travel to Alaska, plus the pay if they want to experience something different than where they are, and the loan reimbursement programs - LW is far from "stuck"! I have a family member that does NOT work with a particular subset of patients but the health network she was working for dumped patients in that subset on her, she quit! She IMMEDIATELY had multiple job offers elsewhere, better working conditions, earns more, vehicle/gas, and gets time off to take an actual vacation.. LW needs to dust off the CV/resume and just realize there's more than one hospital/clinic in the world to work!