Professional: Transitions...

So I go tomorrow to talk with my residency coordinator about switching residencies, from Triple Board to Gen Psych/Child Psych.

In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big leap, as I would be doing all the same rotations in time...it's just that I'd be leaving Peds earlier than anticipated.

I wonder if it's the right decision. To make a change like this. I'm sure people will talk. I'm sure that some of the peds folks will hate me. But I truly don't care what they think. I do care about my sanity. I care about getting up every morning looking forward to going to work and loving what I do.

I don't hate pediatrics. I never will. But I do hate to waste time and spend my energies on things that I'm not passionate about. Especially when I know there are people around me who are much better at it than I am. I don't like the fact that I feel like I'm wasting my talents in Child Psych because I'm stuck in the world of pediatrics.

Part of me worries if this is a "grass is greener" type thing. That I don't want to be on call in the NICU and wards and that I'm copping out just to avoid the irritating idiosyncracies of that part of the program. And I'm sure that psych has it's nuances that are sure to annoy me.

But I pride myself on my flexibility and creativity...neither of which I'm able to utilize in pediatrics. And it's slowly dawning on me that I'll never be able to do so because pediatrics is such a rigid field; far more rigid than I appreciated before I got into it.

Psych is a much more flexible option and at this point in my life, I'm a big fan of flexibility and peaceful state of mind.

In the end, I'll end up at the same place: child psychiatry. It's just that one way I'll be much more worn and haggard and the other way, I'll have the chance to make contributions the entire way through.

I don't know what Dr. Kitty will say. Hopefully she'll be the wonderful person I'm making her in my mind and she'll guide me in making the right decision. According to "Blink" I should've gone the Child Psych route from the beginning. It's only because I forced the idea that I'm in my current circumstance. Tangled web folks...