I am a family medicine physician and I recently quit my job. I would have to say the whole process of medical school and residency was a struggle. Something about my personality gave me just enough faith in the system and endurance to push through. The early arc of my career has already been somewhat abnormal in the relatively sparse workload I ever took on. My first job was at a Federally Qualified Health Center (caring for low income and uninsured people) covering for just 3 months while another provider was out on maternity leave (beginning about 4 months after finishing residency). The medical director is a caring, hardworking man about my parent’s age, and he was interested in holistic medicine in medical school and he goes to conferences on those topics and he even supervises group acupuncture at the clinic. My impression is that the clinic does the best they can, navigating the many bureaucratic realities that are necessary to receive payments from medicare, medicaid, and insurance companies and to qualify for grant money. The general force of those realities leads to short visits with people who have complicated stories that likely aren’t curable or fixable with either the prescriptions or the referrals I could order.

After 3 months, I was toast. I was ready to call it quits for good, and I wasn’t really sure what would be next. This was the clinic that I had very carefully selected for it’s good leadership, and from my possibly narrow lens, I felt I knew that responding to any of the recruiters contacting me about positions for doctors like me from all over the country wouldn’t meaningfully improve the situation for me. I had planned to go to several personal retreats, but the COVID-19 phenomenon quashed those plans. I moved through a deep funk. A kind of existential depression. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for doctors to suffer from poor mental health and even resort to suicide (some 400/year). I never found myself in any kind of perilous situation, but if I am being honest, I was disturbed by those thoughts. There just was no way out that I could see from this career that I couldn’t manage. Did I mention the $300k in student loans?

Things shifted with time. Resetting with meditation, gentle exercise, and rest; I found my footing again. I was in a stable situation with my parents in Omaha with finally nothing to do but focus on myself. Even as the pandemic took off, I felt I had already been through such a personal difficulty, that the gravity of the global situation always seemed somehow navigable by comparison to my impossible career path. I began cooking and making many calls and leading Zooms to support the community of my friends in the early pandemic when much was still unknown.

When George Floyd was killed, I resisted the impulse to drive to Minneapolis immediately. I had participated in BLM marches and rallies over the previous 3 years, and I saw footage of buildings in my neighborhood being destroyed. My friends described community building efforts like never before in the aftermath, but that work was insulated to people on the ground. I had agreed to tend to a friend’s farm animals in NE while his family was on an annual camping trip, giving me a break from my parent’s home, and since there wasn’t an obvious role for me in MN anyways, I took the opportunity to ground my experience with the land. While absorbing and processing the news as I could. I decided that one of the best things I could do to support the community most affected, would be to return to the clinic I had previously left, in North Minneapolis. It has a unique history in being designed for the black community and governed by a community board.

On returning, I set limits on my capacity, only three half-days per week. I was paid for 13.5 hours of work. But as far as I could tell, it felt like a full time job. A half day of clinic is 11 patients scheduled back to back in 20 minute slots. This mostly worked for me. I showed up charged up, and I gave my best effort to help people. I went above and beyond, and I would say I continued thriving through the fall. I had meaningful interactions with patients, and I felt like I was making a positive impact. It didn’t bother me that I stayed late to finish paperwork each day when the total volume turned down to that level.

A shift was noted maybe in December. I started to think that maybe I would want to travel again in February. I didn’t have a clear goal, but something about traveling to get away from the winter cold that extends for 6 months in MN. I imagined meeting doctors, camping, playing music, and just enjoying life when the pandemic is supposed to be keeping us stuck and terrified.

I was paying close attention to the vaccine issue. In fact, I had started digging in during the late spring while I was unemployed. I watched a 9 part docu-series from Ty and Charlene Bollinger that obviously was biased towards vaccine criticism, but my impression was that there were in fact reasonable perspectives to consider from the other side, and that it wasn’t fair to simply dismiss all vaccine criticism without thinking as I had routinely witnessed in my medical training.

So, in December, as the vaccine was coming out, I knew that it would be coming to the clinic, and my first impulse was, maybe I can show up here? Maybe I can ask a few reasonable questions that I pull from the sources that I have learned to consider over the last 6 months, and I engage my colleagues and the clinic in a healthy dialogue. Before I just leave, maybe I can make a difference in this critical moment of this novel “vaccine” rollout. On Dec 21st, I answered an employee survey that I would not be willing to receive the vaccine. I told them that I would consider information presented to me, and that I would be amenable to talking with my boss about it in person or on the phone. I actually created that meeting for myself, because I hoped there might be some slim chance that he would be interested or curious about my position. Well, he wasn’t. He acknowledged that the clinic wouldn’t mandate it, but that he thought I ought to get it for our patient’s sake, or even just my grandmother’s sake. I was a bit disappointed, but I understood that he has worked at the helm of this organization for a number of years, and following the public health advice he is hearing from the authorities and bringing it to the community in need of basic health resources is his mission. He is hopeful that the vaccine will be the gamechanger in the pandemic that it is hoped to be. The clinic received 300 doses, enough for the whole clinic and admin staff. I think something like 220 received it, but I was not one of them.

I had one encounter with an older nurse practitioner who asked if I had had it yet, and I shared honestly that I didn’t plan to. “Well, why not?” I suddenly realized there was no escape from my brash confrontation to the system. I suggested that the risk the virus poses to me, while not zero, is not high, and that the vaccine is still in it’s very early days with limited data. I then left the room to avoid further conversation.

So as January continued, I finally did a scary thing and told my boss that I planned to leave in February. I spoke to my therapist to kind of build up my courage and then I did it. I wrote an email and it was graciously received. We spoke in the office and I felt a little disoriented by the conversation. He seems to want well for me, and the clinic would be glad to have me back in the future it seems.

On my last day of clinic (working in the COVID clinic) my car had a flat tire. It had been making sounds, and it just ran out. I called a Lyft and got to the clinic, scatterbrained, but it was fine. I was anxious, but it was a quiet shift, and I made it through. I had a friend come pick me up and we changed the tire in the cold and I got home. I took it to the shop and it was not only the tire, but the brakes were shot. A $1300 repair. Fine. I was glad it was fixable. I drove to Omaha on Saturday because my roommate had his 3 kids home and I just needed some place to think. I had some emails and calls to make, and the kids take my attention off task as long as they are awake.

In Omaha, I read a book from Rudolf Steiner. I had been curious about him for some time. I was kind of in a weird mood. Distant from my parents. I made my calls and I was kind of exhausted. I started to spiral. Fear and just despair. Whatever my big idea was going to be, I suddenly had nothing but doubts. I was blue. I drove to see my farmer friend (a pastor) and that was a bit awkward. I was nervous, and not totally myself. His rural friend who I had sparred with on FB in the past was working on a truck in the garage. His wife made a casserole and cookies and I played mastermind with his daughter. I saw his new cow and he sent me with ½ a gallon of fresh milk.

I was still worried about my car, but I made it back to MN. I had an uplifting call on the way with a disillusioned psychiatrist-friend who appreciates my courage. But then I moved into an icebox. My roommate keeps it COLD in the house. His kids left for their mother’s, and since he thrives in the winter, he likes the thermostat in the 30s or 40s. Our compromise is the upper 50s, but that is still cold for me! The forecast was near 0* for 10 days. I had this interview on Friday about radical self love and shadow work. My bucket was empty but I gave it my best shot. The interviewer asked about an experience I had had with the shadow. I fumbled, but I spoke about when I had left the job and was so discouraged about my future in medicine. I had written a song about the experience and played it.

Over the weekend, I attended a conference on psychedelics, for medical providers. I feel like a curious outsider to that culture, but I can seem to pass. About 200 attendees on Zoom, hosted by PRATI in CO. Apparently there are a number of doctors using ketamine for treatment resistant depression and probably a few other indications. They anticipate using MDMA in a couple years and I think psilocybin in 3 or something like that? But people are getting prepared. And the conference was interactive in a lovely way so that we could see each other and had numerous breakout rooms. I was open about my interest in a holistic health clinic, but not planning on one the works with psychedelics directly.

So, it’s gotten to be a long story already, but I’m only just getting to the point. I have a dream! It’s called The Good Life Clinic, and it is the project for how I do the work of supporting human flourishing. I have been doing extensive exploration and study and travel to learn about holistic health from a broader perspective than the medical curriculum presented during my education which I am afraid is missing the keys to vibrant health. Holistic health is a big pot, and even organizing the ingredients is a big job. I am working on myself, and I am a work-in-progress. But my plan is to also support others in their self-healing journey. I am ready to change the paradigm. Western medicine has its place, but there is a natural healing element that can be maximized, and we generally are missing the boat on that front from within the system. The best resource I have on the topic at the moment is Lissa Rankin’s book (Mind Over Medicine) which I’m currently reading. I am hot on the trail! I have been a member of her online community for the last 6 months. 

Early on, I was really excited about addressing dietary problems. I was a nutrition major and I just thought it was obvious that collectively, we are eating too much junk, not enough nutrient-rich foods, and that making changes could have the biggest public health impact. I didn’t want to be a public health researcher, I wanted to be a physician, who somehow would motivationally interview my patients into better eating habits. I was excited about Dean Ornish and his scientific papers that described reversing heart disease. I went to meet him when he presented at Esalen in Oct ‘19. He signed my book on reversing heart disease, and I gave that signed copy to Bernie Sanders at a rally in MN in Nov ‘19! That is one of my favorite stories. 

When Dean Ornish spoke at Esalen, Shauna Shapiro had curated the week with presenters on healthy aging, and had also recruited Dan Siegel. He blew me away with his descriptions of consciousness and tools for parents and therapists to work with their clients and children. I met an amazing woman who came from St. Louis to meet her inspiration like I had, my Dean was her Dan.  She worked with her husband as a holistic PT in St. Louis and had built a brand out of her dream to use toys to teach loving connection skills through play. Generation Mindful.

I also participated in James Gordon’s mind-body skills groups the following week at Esalen, in Oct ‘19. My group had it’s hitches, but I loved the model. I loved the groups, and I could see myself taking the reins and running with his model. I did the advanced training in Nov 2020 online, which gave me the skills and training to lead my first group Nov-Jan ‘21. My second group starts on Valentine’s day. These are the early steps of my “Good Life Clinic”. I haven’t charged any fees yet, but I am hoping to link a payment system to this process of doing the work that feels more aligned with authentic healing.

And at the same time, I can easily spiral into fear, stuckness and self-doubt. I believe in this vision I have, but there is a lot of hard work ahead, and I am looking for community acknowledgement and support that this dream is worth facing the challenges as I move forward. I am sharing because ultimately, I think that in telling the story, I am taking a step into bringing my dream into reality, which is the work I am here for. Thank you for reading. May we all learn to support our own and our collective human flourishing.