As a Doctor, This Platform Made a Huge Impact on My Life

Reflections after a year of writing, reading, and becoming better

In October of 2022, I decided to stop working full-time in an Urgent/Emergency Care setting. Once I made that decision, which I had been thinking about for more than 1.5 years by that point, I decided I needed to use my decreased stress on something useful.

I chose to devote a lot of time to Medium because I really enjoyed reading articles here. In a world of short-form social media, where it is hard to concentrate for more than 30 seconds on any one thing, Medium was refreshing. It was much less toxic than any other social media site I had frequented. The writing that comes from top writers was intelligent and made me think. Then, it made me write.

My first article was very hard to write as it expressed a lot of feelings I was having about leaving my job and the guilt around that decision.

But, it was so cathartic to make my feelings known publicly, despite having shared them countless times with all the important people in my life. There is something about the accountability of “putting yourself out there.”

I only received one comment initially. But once I set my mind to something, I cannot stop.

I decided to write for a year and see how things went.

Things are going well, and I can honestly say that I feel different now than I did a year ago. The job change was a huge reason for it but so was writing here. Moreso, as a doctor, my whole approach has changed based on what I have learned from interacting with people on Medium.

A brief recap of my journey

Before this last year, I never knew that being anxious every day was not a requirement of life. I just assumed that was the way things worked. I was anxious all through high school to get into a good college. I worked my butt off in college to get into medical school. I didn’t get in initially.

I instead decided to pursue an MPH and learn about health in a different way before going to medical school. The value of those two years were similar to the benefits I feel from writing here. I got to work with communities in West Philadelphia that were building public gardens to teach locals about growing their own food. That was a transformative experience, especially before medical school took over my life.

Medical school was incredibly difficult. I will never forget walking back from anatomy class one day, after hearing about my friends who were traveling and living life. I called my mom and told her I did not want to do it anymore. I no longer saw the benefit of giving up my life for this thing I had been pursuing since high school. She told me the same thing she told my brother when he made the same call to her 16 years prior when he was in medical school.

“Ok, then quit. It is not worth losing your health.”

I did not call my dad at the time because his advice would have been the same as it was to my brother.

“No worries, just come home and be poor for the rest of your life.”

Ah, the immigrant mentality.

Needless to say, I kept going.

But anxiety was a part of my day-to-day life, whether I recognized it or not. Residency was even harder than medical school, especially when my dad got sick with cancer and eventually passed away. I will forever be thankful to my mentors and my fellow residents who took as much stress off of me as possible so I could be with my family during that impossible time.

I made it through and got a job as an attending. It was amazing from 2018 until about March 2020. Then the funniest thing happened…

The job changed forever, as any doctor will tell you. This was even more true in the emergency setting which was the only access point to care during the early pandemic.

Once I left, 4 years later, I was completely burned out. That is when my new journey began, of which Medium was a huge part.

Anxiety gone, focus arrived

Once I started a job with a normal schedule, my psyche changed. Then my sleep schedule changed as I went to bed at a reasonable hour every night. My circadian rhythm reset from the constant fluctuating shift work schedule. I also no longer worked 2 weekends each month and could actually plan things that were more important to me than work (like spending time with my wife).

My thoughts became less foggy and I lost attention less frequently. Prior to this, I do not think I had read a book for pleasure since college. Seriously. I just could never focus enough when I knew I should have been reading textbooks or journals.

Medium started my interest in reading for pleasure again. I retained most of what I read and became faster. New ideas started to come to me. These were fueled by the amazing, endless content available to me here. That and I started reading books voraciously as I finally found peace in them.

Reading made me start to think about all the topics I was interested in but was never able to pursue due to time constraints or the taboo nature of speaking publicly as a doctor. I thought about my poor health as a doctor and the fact that I was offering health advice on a daily basis. How did that make sense?

So I wrote an article on it.

I read a lot about the mistrust in medicine, especially since COVID and the confusing mixed messages around it. So I wrote about wanting to take patients off of medications, not starting them on new drugs.

Every time I read an newspaper article, listened to a podcast, or talked to a friend, I kept thinking “I want to know more about this topic.” And the thing I realized was that if I felt that way, then at least ONE other person would feel the same.

So I started to learn new things and taught them back in the form of writing. It is like I suddenly had unlimited time to talk to people whereas before I would see up to 35 patients in 8 hours. How could I provide good advice when I could barely breathe?

As I started to understand what people wanted to read, I got better at delving into those topics. And with help from amazing people like Robert Roy Britt who took the time to help me be a better writer, my drive grew exponentially.

I became a better communicator

My writing became better which helped me become a better communicator in general. This became pivotal in my daily life when seeing and talking to patients.

Did you know the average reading level in the US is 7–8th grade? It is even worse with health literacy.

The only nationally representative survey of health literacy, conducted in 2003, tested adults’ ability to use printed health information. It found that over a third — 77 million Americans — had basic or below basic levels of health literacy, 53% had an intermediate level, and only 12% had a proficient level of health literacy. This survey, however, only tested people’s ability to understand and use written health information, including numbers. But health literacy also includes other skills, such as being able to understand spoken information, describe symptoms and side effects, negotiate treatment plans, search for and evaluate health information, and navigate the healthcare system to access services.

I cannot begin to tell you how many conversations I have had with people, usually with medical conditions they have had for 5–10 years, who had no understanding of their medical issues. I would very often hear the phrase:

“Nobody has ever explained it to me like that before.”

This has a lot to do with poor health literacy but it also has everything to do with the fact that people in medicine are poor communicators with limited time (a bad combination). Instructions after a visit can be pages long, and I know very few people will read them.

That is why communication is so important and I cannot emphasize how much better I have become at it because of Medium. When you have to choose words carefully, for fear nobody will read your 5 minute article that took you 10 hours to research and write, you become very careful in how you get points across.

New, healthy habits formed

Due to a new overall change in anxiety and attitude, along with improved sleep, I started to focus more on my health. Cravings for crappy food decreased because instead of getting a dopamine hit from food, I focused on writing or reading. I also started to work out and eat right consistently for the first time in my life. I learned things I should have already known:

• Consistency is key: This is true whether writing, reading, exercising or eating right. Even tiny missteps like taking a few days off of writing or exercising make HUGE differences. I now practice what I had preached to my patients for so long.
• Gratitude all the time: When we express gratitude, everything changes. It is true that happiness can be learned and does not have to be something that happens TO you. Make your own happiness and start by being grateful for any little thing that puts a smile on your face. Focus on that and expand from there. You will feel yourself changing for the better, I promise.

A year of writing was worth it

Yesterday I received the most important comment I had ever received. It was on my recent article about losing my dad and how hard holidays can be as a result, but what we can do about it. Hopefully Mallory Kane won’t be upset that I am quoting her (if she is I promise to edit this part of my story) but she said something to me that has made this entire year of writing worthwhile:

Thank you for writing this. As a fourth year medical student whose dad just died of metastatic cancer, I resonated with much of the experiences and thoughts you shared about when your father was diagnosed with a terminal illness. The holidays are hard when grieving. This was my first thanksgiving without my dad, thank you for helping me feel less alone with this piece.

If you write here on Medium and receive a message like this, how can you not keep writing? As a reader if you come across something that resonates with you like this, and helps you change your mindset, how can you stop learning?

I am a doctor who helped a future doctor because of Medium.

That is the power of this platform and the reason you will be seeing more of me here. I cannot wait to see what the second year of my Medium journey has in store for me.