I did the superman pose every morning. In the dark, at the back of the hospital, before I walked onto the floor, I was preparing for battle just to get through the day.
I wasn't ever bad at medicine. My patients loved me; I'm kind and a good diagnostician. But on the inside, I was grouchier than I'd ever been, more anxious than I'd ever been, and stuck fighting my way through every single day. That's not me. The patients were the only thing keeping me there...and eventually, even that wasn't enough. When the thing you're holding onto stops being enough, that's not burnout. That's a signal.
I left clinical medicine and moved into healthcare process improvement. Six months in, I went from intern to running my own hospital's entire improvement program. In twelve months I had redesigned the lean six sigma program from scratch for the entire health system, taught cohorts of amazing leaders this topic I hadn't known existed even a year before, and used it to transform my hospital. People were assuming I was a Master Black Belt (the highest certification) while I was actually just a White Belt (the lowest one).
Success isn't in the degrees or the certifications; it's in the calling. In medicine, I was a square peg stuffed into a round hole every single day. In process improvement, it felt like God had built the hole for me specifically. I stopped fighting and started thriving. I also started making more money and easier. That's a lie they tell us to keep us stuck: that clinical medicine is the only path lucrative enough to pay back your loans. Since leaving the bedside, I've worked from many a beach making more than I was when I was trudging to the hospital in the dark. Trust me, I have pictures.
When I pivoted, there was no one to call. No one who had done it, who understood the training and the debt and the identity wrapped up in that white coat, and who could help me think it through rigorously. That's exactly why I built The Pivot Prescription. I've helped nurses, physicians, dentists, researchers, administrators, and more — people twice my senior — move out of work that was draining them and into work where they actually thrive.
You are not stuck to a decision you made at 18. You're not stuck to a career that no longer fits who you became. You're built for more. Let's find it together.
This message could've easily been
Written from a boat.
Heading to the beach.
Working on my laptop.
Happier than I've ever been.
So can your response after you pivot.
Best wishes,
Dr. Britney Scott
MD · LSSBB · Founder, The Pivot Prescription
