Does Your Medical Career Five-Year Plan Do This?
Key Takeaways
Goals are cheap and easy to come by. Planning, on the other hand, takes some serious work.
There’s some real utility in not just knowing where you want to be in five years, but more important, knowing how you’ll get there. That’s where Dr. Jacqueline Huntly, a physician career and leadership development coach, comes in. Huntly says that your five-year career plan should be a roadmap of personal and professional milestones. Here’s how to account for each.
“The more you have a sense for you own ability to control your destiny, the better positioned you’ll be,” Huntly says.
Personal Milestones
Many of you will have (or hope to have, or wish you had) a personal life outside of medicine. What do you want to achieve in your personal life? Maybe you want to start a family, spend a month each year traveling, or volunteer more in your community.
“It’s perfectly legitimate and professional to address these things. That may sound obvious, but it’s not necessarily obvious to physicians,” Huntly says.
You read that right, doctor. It doesn’t have to be all about your career.