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While many physicians experiencing burnout feel the best path for them is transitioning to a nonclinical job, others realize they have a clinical passion outside of their current specialty that reinvigorates their love for practicing medicine. This is what happened to today’s guest, Dr. Dana Muhlfelder, an EM physician who found joy and balance by pursuing work in the hospice and palliative care field. She’ll share how she realized she needed to explore additional career options, why she loves hospice and palliative care, and what she did to create a career that works for her. We’ll also learn about some steps you can take to explore this expanding and much needed area in medicine.
In this episode we’re talking about:
- What led Dr. Muhlfelder to search for professional fulfillment outside of the ER
- Why Dana finds end-of-life care to be so meaningful
- How she found a fellowship program that fit her needs
- What it was like completing a fellowship while working as an attending
- How Dr. Muhlfelder balances her two roles now
- Why Dana feels finding her new path saved her career
- How to pursue this career option if it interests you
Links for this episode:
American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
Book Recommendations
ON LIVING by Kerry Egan
BEING MORAL by Atul Gawande
MORTALITY by Christopher Hitchens
WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR by Paul Kalanithi
IN SHOCK by Rana Awdish
THAT GOOD NIGHT by Sunita Puri
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO THE END by BJ Miller
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I’d love to hear more about how Dr. Muhlfelder’s approach to life has changed after doing this work, and also if she plans on continuing to do EM or switch to palliative care full time.
Hi JZ, I’m glad you were able to listen to Dr. Dana Muhlfelder’s story on the podcast. I am not sure of the answer to your great questions, my apologies, but if I find out some further details I can let you know!
What a fabulous topic to cover–I don’t think many of us understood what paliative medicine covers and exploring the possibility of doing this part time is a great suggestion. As always, thank you Heather for recruiting such fascinating people to interview.
Thanks so much Theresa for your lovely comment and for listening to this podcast episode with Dr. Dana Muhlfelder. I agree, she was a fascinating guest and this area of palliative care/hospice medicine is very intriguing. I myself did not have much exposure to this most important and valuable specialty either. It definitely deserves more airplay!! I hope is this is an area of interest for you, that you get to explore what’s possible for you!