The Decision That Didn't
Make Sense

"Lauren, we want you to join us!"

I stared at the email subject line. My heart pounded. This was the moment I had been waiting for. The answer to weeks of anticipation, months of searching, years of restlessness.

So why did I have a knot in my stomach?

Two weeks earlier, I had walked out of that interview certain I had found my place. The energy in the room, the enthusiasm for medical education, the way everyone seemed genuinely interested in me. Not just my CV, but me. I had driven home with my mind racing, already imagining myself there, wondering what it would be like.

Now I was second-guessing myself. I wanted external validation that this was the right choice.

What was wrong with me?

The Life I Had Built

To understand why this career change decision felt so impossible, I need to take you back to the years before that email arrived.

I was an allergist-immunologist at an academic medical center. I had helped build the clinic from the ground up. I trained staff, created workflows, developed the invisible infrastructure that makes a practice run. I had patients I adored, diagnostic puzzles that challenged me, residents and students I mentored. I had arrived at the destination I had been walking toward my entire life.

But something was missing. A quiet restlessness I couldn't name.

At first, I blamed the commute. A geographical move had stretched my total daily drive to three, sometimes four hours. I was exhausted before I even saw my first patient. I spent years trying to fix things. Looking for jobs closer to home, advocating for changes at work, searching for some adjustment that would make the restlessness go away.

Nothing felt right. And eventually I realized why.

I wasn't trying to run away from something. I was trying to run toward something. I just didn't know what it was yet.

The Clue I Kept Ignoring

The answer had been there all along. I just hadn't recognized it.

Early in my time at the clinic, when patient volumes were still building, I had taken on teaching opportunities at the same school where I had been a student almost a decade earlier. Medical students rotated through my clinic. I lectured. I facilitated small groups.

And something unexpected happened. I found a part of me I didn't even know was missing.

The energy students brought. Their curiosity, their excitement when something clicked, their pride in discovery. It was magnetic. I left every teaching encounter feeling more energized than when I started. This was the opposite of what clinic had become. Clinic, with its repetitive rhythms and administrative weight, often left me drained. Teaching filled me up.

I started noticing something else: I missed it when it wasn't on my schedule. I found myself volunteering for more teaching, advocating for protected education time, looking for any excuse to be in a classroom instead of an exam room.

But I didn't let myself see what this meant. Not yet. I saw this as an antidote to the drain of daily medicine, nothing more.

After all, I was a physician. That was my identity. Teaching was a nice addition, but it wasn't the thing. Right?

The Email That Changed Everything

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a message arrived from a colleague and friend who worked in medical education.

Have you seen this job posting?

A new medical school was being built. Not across the country. Not even across the state. In my own backyard.

And the position wasn't clinical. It was primarily focused on medical education.

I clicked the link and felt something shift in my chest. This wasn't just closer to home. This was closer to me.

I submitted an application before I could talk myself out of it. I don't even recall if I shared it with anyone else, including my husband.

The interview felt different from any I had experienced before.

Usually, interviews feel like performances. Carefully curated versions of yourself, designed to check the right boxes. This one felt like a conversation. The people I met were enthusiastic about education in a way that matched my own enthusiasm. They asked questions that made me think, not just recite accomplishments. They seemed genuinely curious about who I was and what I cared about, not just what was on my CV, or whether I had the right answers to their questions.

I drove home that day feeling something I hadn't felt in years: I belong there.

Then came the wait. Two weeks of refreshing my inbox, replaying and analyzing every interaction and conversation, wondering if or when I would hear from them.

And then: "Lauren, we want you to join us!"

Why the "Yes" Felt Like a "Maybe"

You would think this was the happy ending. The moment where the music swells and the credits roll.

Instead, I felt my stomach drop.

I had been ready to leap two weeks ago. Now, with the door actually open in front of me, I wanted to dig my heels into the dirt and hold on to everything I had built.

What was I doing?

I had spent my entire life on a single path. Since childhood, every decision had pointed toward one goal: becoming a physician. I had sacrificed years to training. I gave up hobbies and interests. I had built a clinic from nothing. I had patients who trusted me, colleagues who respected me. I had arrived.

And now was I really going to trade my stethoscope and white coat for what felt like a leap into the unknown? Except for a single day of clinic I had managed to keep, I would be stepping away from the career I had worked so hard to build.

Was I making the biggest mistake of my life?

The Advice That Almost Stopped Me

I talked to my family. I talked to my mentors. I needed someone to help me see clearly.

The responses were mixed.

Some people encouraged me. They saw what I couldn't fully see yet. That I had been restless for a reason, that this opportunity was rare, that I was ready even if I didn't feel ready.

But others cautioned me. Don't leave medicine. You've worked too hard for this. You're an excellent physician. Your patients need you. They're going to miss you. And what if you miss them?

And then the warning that echoed loudest: If you leave clinical medicine, it will be hard to go back. You will lose your credibility as a physician if you are not practicing more than one day a week.

I felt like I was standing at a door that would lock behind me. Once I stepped through, there was no returning to the life I had built.

The Question That Made the Decision Clear

For days, I sat with the decision. I cycled through every emotion. Excitement, terror, grief, hope, guilt.

And then I did something I hadn't done before. I took the emotion out of the equation as much as I could and looked at the facts.

I loved teaching.

I loved medicine.

I was stuck. Unable to grow further as a physician in my current role.

If I didn't take this opportunity, I knew I would spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if I had. That regret would follow me everywhere, including on my long commute to and from clinic. I knew that it would never leave.

But if I took the leap and it didn't work out? I would be proud of myself for trying. I would have an answer instead of a question. I could live with failure. I couldn't live with never knowing.

I had never heard Richard Branson's advice at the time: "If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes, then learn how to do it later."

But that's exactly what I did.

I said yes.

What Saying Yes Actually Felt Like

I wish I could tell you that the fear disappeared the moment I made the decision.

That's not what happened.

I grieved. I second-guessed.

But I also felt something else.

Relief.

I had finally given myself permission to want something different. To admit that the life I had built, as beautiful as it was, wasn't the only life I was capable of living. To acknowledge that growth sometimes means letting go of the version of yourself you worked so hard to become.

I didn't know yet what I would find on the other side of that door. I didn't know if this new path would bring the fulfillment I was searching for.

What I couldn't have predicted was that saying yes to this role would teach me something far bigger than how to be a medical educator.

It would teach me how to say yes to myself.

If You're Standing at a Door Like This

Have you ever stood at a door like this? An opportunity that excited you and terrified you in equal measure?

Maybe you're standing there right now. Maybe the door is open and you're frozen, caught between the life you've built and the life that's calling to you.

If that's where you are, the question I had to ask myself might be useful: Which version of regret can you live with? The regret of trying and failing, or the regret of never knowing?

For most people I work with, the answer is the same one I came to. Trying is survivable. Never knowing isn't.

If you're sensing that something new is calling but you're unsure whether to answer, this is exactly the work I do as a career transition coach. Sometimes you need a thinking partner to help you separate the fear from the facts, and to figure out what's actually on the other side of your door.

Book a free discovery call and let's talk about what's calling you.

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