Unexpected Success of Leaving Academic Medicine for Community practice

This Blog post represents a partnership between the Women in Medicine Summit and Healio Women in Oncology. An excerpt appears blow, and please find the full length piece at Healio’s Women in Oncology Blog.

When I graduated from oncology fellowship in 2015, I went straight into an academic position thinking that I would continue to pursue my goals of early drug development and phase 1 clinical trials.

I truly enjoyed being a new attending. I was building my practice, teaching fellows, conducting research and working with wonderful colleagues. The only challenge — a big challenge — was a long commute, where I was routinely spending 3 to 4 hours in the car daily. I discovered audiobooks and would dictate patient notes on my phone to be productive. My husband worked 2 hours in the opposite direction, so moving closer to where I worked was not an option. Additionally, both of our families lived nearby, and we wanted to be close as we began our family.

Gut feeling

Fast forward 1 year later, and I was up at 3 a.m. breastfeeding and aimlessly scrolling on my phone. I hadn’t canceled my prior email subscription to The New England Journal of Medicine Career Center and I saw that my community hospital was looking to hire a breast and gynecologic medical oncologist — my exact area of practice.

I was already dreading what my commute would look like when I returned from maternity leave, and so I clicked apply without thinking much more about it. I filled out some brief information, put my baby down in her bassinet and fell asleep.

About the author: Eleonora Teplinsky, MD is head of breast medical oncology and clinical assistant professor of medicine at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.