“Hey one thing as you’re looking at jobs, because i’m worried about you… Don’t wander…” – One of my most senior, extremely well-established, successful physician-scientist academic Attendings.

Throughout the years, the older i’ve gotten and the more i’ve traveled and relocated my life, the more i have realized that a majority of people (outside of the military) do not nearly as much. So, either you found your way to this blog because you do, you find it interesting or different when people do, or you try to figure out how to pinpoint and possibly hire those that do. For most people, the idea of ‘establishing roots’ holds the greatest significance for a career, and even larger, a life. The tried and true, straightforward path is that you pick a track, you work towards it, and you stay on it, generally indefinitely.

It is suggested that the average American hols up to 12 jobs in a life time, while the average Physician, likely holds less than 3-6 – many, remain at their training facility whether that be post-residency or post-fellowship training. For myself, by the end of my fellowship training, in my mid-30s, I will have worked in over 20 different hospitals including my time as a locum tenens, as well as residency and fellowship. Certainly and beyond slightly, unconventional.

“Medicine is one of the easiest ways to translate working hard into money,” as my mentor, an Anesthesiologist, pointed out to me when we had this very discussion on the need for stability. If you think about it, there are a thousand other jobs where working hard in school doesn’t directly correlate to professional success – we all remember spending listless hours writing papers or working on presentations or homework that becomes an inconsequential memory in the distant past when we start our true ‘adult’ jobs. I’m not sure if I know very many people outside of specific fields, that use calculus on a day-to-day basis. I am always lucky and grateful I can use the information of basic biology and science that Ms. Yang taught me as a high school student as a doctor, but certain other subjects have been less translatable. Obviously as you get further into higher education, the learning becomes nuanced and applicable to real-life and full jobs, but the undergraduate model still largely persisting of well-rounded education and pre-requisite information generally is rendered moot at some stage.

As such, it follows that finding stability is a common trend. Especially with the sometimes unavoidable path of moving for various stages of medical training due to the ‘match’ process, after many stages of academic involvement, it is easily understandable that the travel/moving exhaustion gets old. Planting roots, forming foundations and growing your physical, social and family tree are at the heart of seeking Stability; and, it makes complete sense.

Twenty years ago, I had a very unclear path ahead of me and lent myself to the rigor of medical training without working as hard to maintain such stability and as such, was driven farther and farther way from it. It has been almost 15 years since I have lived in the same state I grew up in and the journey away has made it even less enticing to go back. As I contemplate my next branching point on this journey, I wonder where it will take me but I feel more stable in instability than the contrary – maybe it was locum tenens which has made me wander, or maybe I wander and it’s why locum tenens called to me. Like most people, I had hoped to find the love of my life somewhere along the path to cement a larger more deeply important reason to solidify a “home base,” but time and time again, the volatility of my job has been problematic as well as the intellectual and mental Stockholm syndrome that has pervaded my life when i’m not at the hospital.

Now, the concept of sitting still, being silent and planting roots seems not only less desirable, but almost intimidating. When you are used to floating along in the wind, landing becomes a challenge. So, as I approach the future, unsure of ultimately where I’d like to “plant roots,” I will continue to wander to understand if i ever can plant them. I hope one day my soon to be former Attending understands, I was never meant to sit still, I was never meant to hold steady in one place, and it may be different and non-traditional, but perhaps it isn’t wrong. Some of us wander, but not because we are lost.

Image Credit: ChatGPT