A company spokesperson told STAT the Drop Out Club aims to provide an online forum through which physicians, residents, medical school students and others can ask for and offer advice, search through job postings and converse with individuals on the site through a private messaging option. Of the site’s approximately 37,000 members, nearly half are physicians, according to the report.
“The frustration with medicine is fueling our growth,” said Laura McKain, MD, founder of Physician Nonclinical Career Hunters, a Facebook group that aims to help physicians transition through a career change. “Doctors are frustrated with how much time they’re spending on paperwork and other activities that have little to do with patient care.”
Dr. McKain told STAT that through online platforms like PNCH or the Drop Out Club, physicians have access to a resource that may not be available to them in their daily life: a community of people grappling with the same fears and stressors, all struggling to decide if a career change is necessary.
However, some users reportedly said it proved difficult to find individuals on the Drop Out Club who had successfully transitioned out of medicine and were willing to provide advice and insight into the transition process.
Maryam Shapland, MD, an emergency physician who left her practice after seven years and who now does part-time consulting and part-time medicine, said more medical personnel who have left clinical practice need to speak up about their unconventional career paths and make themselves available as a resource for others in similar situations.
“Just being a living, breathing example of someone who made it to the other side and will answer a couple questions can help someone take that leap of faith,” she told STAT.
More articles on hospital-physician relationships:
WellCare to provide $180k in scholarships to University of Kentucky medical, nursing students
WMU medical school names scholarship after university president
Alabama physician dies climbing Mount Everest
