I (29F) have worked in healthcare as a physician assistant for almost 3 years and the daily thoughts to quit have only intensified. I love the actual work I do but seeing a patient every 15 minutes and all the administrative work is stressful and depressing. I’ve switched jobs, started therapy and antidepressants, started new hobbies, and travel as often as I can hoping that when I get back I’ll be able to accept the business-focused insanity that healthcare has become.
I’m very honest with upper management. Just yesterday when I was told again that I’m a star employee, I replied that it’s not sustainable, I’m burning out, and if there were a job closer to home I’d take it. I’m so miserable working that I couldn’t keep it in. The most recent thing to piss me off at work is that I had PTO and a work conference planned for months. I got Covid in between so had to miss work. Well now my 4 hours a week of administrative time for the next 3 weeks will be filled with patients and I’ll have lots of overbooks the other days to accommodate the patients. Told management that I care for the patients but it wasn’t fair to screw me over for being sick because this means I’ll be taking more work home with me. I’m booked out for at least 4 weeks and they’ve had an MD job opening for months with no luck.
Husband is open to me just quitting and taking my time looking for another job. He picked up a second job (part time) back in January so that I’d feel comfortable about the bills getting paid. I’m scared to quit without another job offer and every job opening is either too far or looks more stressful (urgent care, ER jobs). I look at job openings daily. I also am very scared to go too long without working and have difficulty returning – employer seeing gap and my knowledge/skills getting rusty. It doesn’t help my stress that the past 3 years have been a 45-75min commute one way. My husband is very supportive but I also don’t want to rely on him financially forever. Sigh. I don’t know what to do and am open to any suggestions.