Why This ER Doctor Decided That Business Is Way Better Than ...

Image: MIT Christine Tsien Silvers

After several years as an ER doctor, Christine Tsien Silvers decided to quit clinical medicine to become the Chief Medical Officer of a small company and, therefore, leave behind the days of having to see an "average number of patients per hour."

Her recent guest post on Philip Greenspun's blog says:

Let's be honest: leaving clinical medicine had crossed my mind before ? for example, at Hour 24 of pained wakefulness during Emergency Medicine (EM) Residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Later, while working in the community, I would sometimes sigh, proud and privileged to be able to help patients, yet nostalgic for less harried work. Those belligerent types yelling profanities, or the guy tired of waiting five hours and promising to sue everyone, those towering chart piles of could-be-critical yet still waiting-to-be-seen patients, the hallways littered with ticking-time-bomb, semi-stable admitted patients awaiting inpatient rooms... such moments, unfortunately not infrequent, definitely gave me pause.

Five-digit medical malpractice insurance premiums also meant that for my first twentysome per diem shifts each year, I was paying to treat patients. My independent consultant work in my MIT dissertation area of "multivariate trend analysis," such as used in developing improved patient monitors, in stark contrast was not only rewarding but also accommodating?teleconferences could be scheduled between school drop-off and pickup, for example. Moreover, nobody was pressuring me to sacrifice my desire to be thorough in order to be faster...as my maternity leave too rapidly drew to a close, I felt increasingly convinced that perhaps I should hang up my stethoscope.

Unfortunately, practitioners turning their backs on medicine leave us wondering what will happen to the nation's medical field in a time when America is already behind in science. Reuters reported that "national studies show that at the elementary level, science is barely being taught" especially when compared to English and Math.?

And we're all left wondering, "Who will take care of us when we are injured or ill?"

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/emergency-room-stress-doctor-leave-medicine-science--christine-tsien-silvers-2011-12

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