Blueprints and Burnout: Reflections on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Work

by Julie M. Hau

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” –Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

“What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?” (October 26, 1967)

The American Medical Association surveys and tracks physicians’ feelings of burnout and intentions to leave their positions or the field.

The physician specialties with the highest intent to leave were:

• Internal medicine: 39.1%.
• Family medicine: 37.3%.
• Obstetrics and gynecology: 34%.
• Hospitalist medicine: 32.9%.
• Emergency medicine: 32.3%.
• Pediatrics: 30.2%.

Understanding the reasons why physicians leave is implicitly tied to determining the path they choose next. Physicians searching for a clinical position need to consider a multitude of factors often explored in career coaching. Factors like culture, work-life integration, vertical mobility, and research opportunities are among a few of the decisions needed. These are decisions that cannot be made without thoughtful self-reflection and assessment of priorities.

Drawing a blueprint for our careers helps us have a place to start. In time, we add an adjoining room, redesign an old room and even add a staircase to a second floor. Sometimes, it is necessary to dismantle the house and build a new foundation going in a different direction with new tools. Career coaching is a path to exploring your life’s blueprint and finding new tools to build innovatively. It is a way of expressing yourself in the worlds of education and work.

Career coaching is not prescribing what you should do. There is no single test or assessment that can decide for you what you should do with your life. Instead, and beautifully, assessments help clients reflect on their interests, skills, abilities, personality, values, and strengths. Further, in conversation with your coach, you draft your career past and construct a story of your career future. You explore who you are, what’s available in the world of work, and how you might merge the two. This notion goes back to the father of career guidance, Frank Parson, in his groundbreaking 1909 book, Choosing a Vocation. Like King, he wrote in service to society with the dream of helping others find passion and purpose in their lives.

“Tell me about yourself” is one of the first guiding questions I ask in a career coaching intake. Coincidentally, it is often the first question asked in a job interview. This question is one of the most difficult and important to answer. From career exploration to job interviewing to introducing ourselves, we ask and answer this question many times in our lives, rewriting this troupe, and redrawing this blueprint.

As a career coach, my goal is to help others actualize their career potential. I believe career coaching is a path to self-discovery and career action. Ideally, clients find a job that brings joy, passion, and purpose in their work and something that serves to help them to support themselves and their families. If their current position does not fulfill these requirements, clients should feel empowered to return to their blueprint. For doctors, this may mean retooling, considering a different specialty, or leaving the world of medicine for other endeavors.

Each of us in our own way is working toward a life well-lived within our work, friendships, families, communities, and the world at large. Doctors work so all of us can have our health and fulfill our purpose. The need for caring professionals who value and enjoy their work can not be under-emphasized. King reflects not only on how we work but also how well we work. Most importantly, King stresses that we find dignity and pride in our vocation.

Click The King Center for more information about Dr. King, Jr.

Click Bridging the Gap Year for more information from Julie M. Hau.

Click Career Coaching for more information about the LAS Career Coaching Model in Medical Education.