How to drop out of medicine. Posts.
Category: How To Drop Out Of Medicine
Einstein’s Insanely Simple Guide To Fixing The NHS
The NHS is in trouble.
How much trouble?
Well…how long is a piece of string?
At a micro level, you’ve got the frustration of Medics who are overworked, inadequately supported, and silently struggling with depression and suicide.
And at a macro level, you’ve got the usual suspects of: hospital closures, huge waiting times, poor allocation of resources…not to mention the role of Brexit in exacerbating these issues.
So the question is: what can we do to fix things? How can we make things better?
Answer: ask a genius outside the NHS to help us fix it.
A genius like…Albert Einstein.
Even though he’s been dead for over 60 years, his brilliance has lived on, through online memes featuring statements like:
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
However, if you had to pick just ONE of Einstein’s many brilliant insights and apply it to fixing the NHS, I believe it would be this one:
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Think crazy
If you were to sum up the history of human innovation in just 5 words, it would look like this:
Today’s brilliance was yesterday’s bonkers.
Switching from horses to cars…crazy.
Flying through the air in a metallic aircraft…crazy.
Running a mile in under 4 minutes…crazy.
Convincing Doctors to wash their hands with soap…crazy.
Women voting, a black President of the USA, the telephone, the Internet, driverless cars, space travel to Mars…
Today’s brilliance was yesterday’s bonkers.
This means that the cure for cancer, or AIDS or cystic fibrosis could be hiding in plain sight…disguised as a ludicrously impractical “mad hatter”.
This means that the solution to that extremely complex situation that you’re dealing with is probably much simpler than you dare to imagine.
This means that the key to solving the global healthcare challenges facing humanity…is simply empowering and encouraging each of us to think and look like one of “the crazy ones”.
Get some sleep, do some aerobic exercise, and think differently for 10 minutes each morning.
That’s how practical this idea is.
Given humanity’s excellent track record in seeing a brilliant innovation and quickly dismissing it as crazy, ridiculous or impossible…it stands to reason that we should be more intentional about exploring today’s crazy in order to discover tomorrow’s normal.
In other words, make time each day to think differently…to think crazy.
How do we do that, particularly in a highly regulated, litigation-rife industry such as healthcare?
Or even more importantly, how do you become more intentional about exploring the ideas and interests that you’ve earmarked as impractical, impossible or “for when I have time”?
Yes, you.
That’s the real question.
Because when we talk about “the NHS”, we’re really talking about the people who make up the NHS…people like you and me.
And if we will dare to think differently, dare to look like a fool, dare to ask a silly question today in order to discover a brilliant answer tomorrow…then we will not only transform the NHS, but also the lives of generations to come.
Image: @hughmacleod
Disrupt your personal narrative
Anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, pathology, microbiology, epidemiology…
Surgery, paediatrics, geriatrics, obs and gynae, orthopaedics…
First year, second year, third year, fourth year, fifth year, internship, rotations, specialisation…
PLEB, USMLE, Fellowship, Part 1, Part 2, Masters, Diploma…
Now imagine all of this being replaced by a 9 year old with a smartphone.
Imagine all of these formidable bits of paper achievements being as relevant as a greasy newspaper used to wrap up last week’s fish and chips.
Imagine a world where a Doctor isn’t a person…but rather an interconnected network of trillions of devices all focused on annihilating and anticipating threats to the homeostasis of global (and individual) health.
Imagine that everything you’ve been using to define your personal narrative…suddenly vanished overnight, leaving you with one question:
Now what?
These were some of the ideas I was exploring in class today with one of the students who was asking me to give him advice about what he should do.
I think regardless of where you are, the practice of disrupting your own personal narrative is no longer an option.
Because all the changes that are happening right now are asking you whether you’re going to disrupt your personal narrative…or if you’d rather that someone else did it for you.
An important reminder for myself as I battle again with 2nd year basic sciences after a 15+ year hiatus.
I feel that Medicine is in the middle of being completely overturned.
And my goal is to use this blog to document and anticipate these changes…as well as to share my ideas regarding the Okay Doctor healthcare system.
But more than that, the act of committing to shipping out a new idea every day is a way of disrupting my personal narrative…instead of having it done for me.
Become Batman
Don’t kill yourself.
Instead, kill the identity of your old self…and stick around to explore who you can be right now.
That’s how 8 year-old Bruce Wayne became Batman.
Wracked by grief after seeing his parents shot dead in front of him, young Bruce decided to secretly bury the life he was supposed to have before his parents were killed…and create an alternate identity that let him explore who he could become now.
He wore his old identity as a mask to give him the freedom of expressing his true self as Batman.
They think you’re just a focused medical student on track to making them proud.
You know you’re more than that. But don’t worry about trying to change this image.
Instead, use it as a mask that frees you to explore your true secret identity…and get to work on achieving your Escape Velocity.
This is a taster from Escape Velocity: a personalised email course that guides medics step-by-step in how to successfully make the transition from being stuck in medical school…to living a life of happiness, freedom and fulfilment. Admission is by invitation-only. Click here to apply for your FREE invite.
Master the 33 strategies of War
The only way to successfully escape or transition from a dead-end career in Medicine…is to stop thinking like a Medic.
Instead, think like a military strategist who deploys tactics and manoeuvres to overcome obstacles and defeat insurmountable foes.
One of the fastest ways to do this is to devour “The 33 Strategies of War” by Robert Greene.
Read it, listen to it, take notes from it…and you’ll suddenly see a clear path open to you as you apply these strategies in your current situation.
Stop thinking like a Medic, and start thinking like a military strategist.
This is a taster from Escape Velocity: a personalised email course that guides medics step-by-step in how to successfully make the transition from being stuck in medical school…to living a life of happiness, freedom and fulfilment. Admission is by invitation-only. Click here to apply for your FREE invite.
Your parents are not the enemy
Your parents are not the enemy.
Instead, they’re just pawns in the bigger game that’s playing all around you.
It’s the game of the broken “Healthcare Factory System”. And the goal of the game is to recruit as many replaceable cogs (see: Doctors) to keep the system going.
Your parents are unwitting pawns in this game. They’ve been tricked into believing that the best thing they can do for their children’s future is to set them on the path to becoming a Doctor.
And that’s what they did with you.
Not because they hate you or even because they despise the dreams you’ve shared with them.
All they’re thinking about is the idea they were sold:
If my child becomes a Doctor, everything will be okay.
You already know that everything will not be okay.
But they don’t know that, and trying to convince them that they were wrong is an exercise in futility.
In other words: it’s never going to work.
What you need to do, instead, is give them a different story to tell themselves about you…a story in which you get to do what you’ve always dreamed of doing.
And the way you craft such a story, is by understanding one crucial thing:
Your parents are not the enemy…they’re just pawns in the bigger game that’s being played around you.
This is a taster from Escape Velocity: a personalised email course that guides medics step-by-step in how to successfully make the transition from being stuck in medical school…to living a life of happiness, freedom and fulfilment. Admission is by invitation-only. Click here to apply for your FREE invite.
Seek first to understand…
…then to be understood.
One of the most crucial lessons from Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, especially when it comes to recruiting your parents as allies in your transition from a career in Medicine into the Work you were created to pursue.
Dare to feel where they’re coming from and looking at the world from their perspective (don’t worry about losing your sense of self or desire for freedom…that’s built into you)
Or as Stephen put it:
Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
This is a taster from Escape Velocity: a personalised email course that guides medics step-by-step in how to successfully make the transition from being stuck in medical school…to living a life of happiness, freedom and fulfilment. Admission is by invitation-only. Click here to apply for your FREE invite.