Quitting Healthcare: Why I Finally Let Go—for Real This Time
A few weeks ago, we faced a full-on fly invasion in our house—one of Biblical proportions!
At first, we blamed the warming temperatures. But this wasn’t just a seasonal nuisance—something else was wrong. I tried my usual tricks: the electric racket, sticky traps, sprays…even Zevo. Eventually, I set aside my squeamishness and got a fly swatter. Still, nothing made a dent.
Weeks later, we found the real source: a trash bin in our backyard had become a breeding ground—crawling with larvae.
No wonder nothing worked. We were targetting individual flies while thousands more were hatching daily.
So, what does this have to do with quitting healthcare?
Everything.
My Story: Why I Quit Healthcare (The first time)
Five years ago, I walked away from a two-decade-long career in oncology. (The easy version of that story? I burned out—topped with PTSD after becoming a cancer patient in the same hospital where I worked.)
But it’s deeper than that.
At nineteen, I watched my mother decline and die of incurable cancer. The years I spent caring for her shaped my identity and left an open wound. In the fog of grief, I made a life-defining decision: to become an oncologist.
For over a decade, I poured myself into that mission. Every patient became a stand-in for my mother—my chance to make things right.
But each loss left a scar. Over time, I began to see a heartbreaking truth: The healthcare system around me wasn’t built to heal. It was built to profit.
I won’t get into every painful story from my final years in practice—partly due to NDAs, partly to honor my decision to release the past. But many physicians will relate: Measuring your worth in dollars and RVUs. Pricing human suffering with ICD codes. The fierce competition. The backstabbing. The ego clashes. And the gnawing sense that the patient was an afterthought—every decision driven first by fear of liability, second by profit. Only if there was energy left did anyone consider what was best for the patient.
And then, amid all that disappointment, I got cancer.
When the Doctor Becomes the Patient
Within a year, I endured multiple surgeries, chemo, radiation, and hormonal blockade. I also experienced something even worse: a sense of powerlessness.
I fought with insurance companies. Waited weeks for tests. Navigated a system I once thought I understood.
Most jarring of all? The doctors.
Well-meaning but overzealous, they pushed for more surgeries, broader radiation fields, more aggressive treatments—often ignoring the long-term consequences on my quality of life. They were trying to protect me from recurrence…and themselves from lawsuits.
But they didn’t see me.
And the hardest truth? Sometimes, I had been that doctor.
Had I ever pushed a young woman into early menopause for a marginal reduction in recurrence risk—without truly weighing what she was giving up?
Had I ever recommended Adriamycin-based chemo for a 1% survival benefit, ignoring its lifelong risks?
Yes. And seeing it from the other side humbled me.
A New Word for Me: Cognitive Dissonance
Yes, burnout played a role in my resignation. So did the PTSD—the nausea that hit me every time I passed the chemo chair where I once sat for my own treatments. The survivor’s guilt didn’t help either. I cried in hiding after consulting on patients even younger than me, dying of cancers beyond my power to heal.
But the single most important reason I resigned?
Cognitive dissonance.
I could no longer practice a career that no longer aligned with my integrity.
In February 2020, I handed in my resignation. Days later, the COVID pandemic hit. When Florida entered lockdown and, still immunosuppressed from chemo and radiation, I requested early release from my three-month notice—and it was granted.
On April 2, 2020, I walked into my office for the last time.
I picked up my personal documents, packed a few memories—mostly gifts from beloved patients. I snapped photos of handwritten notes and tossed the rest: expired journals, outdated textbooks, remnants of a life I was done with.
I’ve never stepped foot in that place again.
Letting Go—Again. When Cognitive Dissonance Comes Back
Fast forward a few years. I’d become a life coach, living my dream of freedom and healing, helping others with their transformations. Almost without planning it, I became a physician coach.
My clients were spread across the country. On top of coaching, I was now a professional speaker, raising awareness about what I believed was the greatest emergency in healthcare: physician burnout. I’d lived it. My message was clear:
“Life is short. Live with joy. Cultivate self-awareness. Know your values so you can live intentionally—not by default.”
Audiences loved my talks, but their reactions started to bother me. Too often, they followed praise with quiet despair—“But we can’t change the system.”
Some seemed in pain just hearing my words. They weren’t ready. Or worse, they’d already given up.
The discomfort crept into my coaching work. As much as I adored my physician clients, and celebrated their breakthroughs, I couldn’t shake the sense that I was placing a band-aid on a gaping wound. Even in my best cases—clients who changed their lives, found new jobs, saved their marriages—sustaining that joy in the environments they were returning to took so much energy.
It felt like I was sending them back to literal hell, protected by a fragile, beautiful bubble—powerful, but temporary.
The Deeper Problem
Then I finally saw it.
The problem wasn’t the individual physician.
It was the culture of healthcare.
The Epiphany
It hit me in the fall of 2024: The toxic culture in healthcare is rooted in a loss of integrity. Somewhere along the way, medical institutions forgot the purpose of medicine: healing. They traded values for profit. I was treating symptoms of a much deeper disease.
I realized:
I’d been killing flies one by one, while a trashcan in my backyard kept breeding them.
Letting Go—Again
There I was, once more, starting a career full of enthusiasm—this time trying to complete emotional unfinished business.
I had entered oncology not out of love, but out of grief. Now, I was trying to rewrite the past. I wanted to rescue my physician clients. To give the story a better ending than mine.
But just like before, it began to feel like I was battling a monster I couldn’t defeat. I was headed toward burnout again.
Yes, part of the problem was me—I brought myself with me. (Perfectionism. Self-flagellation. Obsessing over the one person I couldn’t save instead of the hundreds I helped. The tendency to overwork and ignore my body’s signals… that’s another post.)
But this time, I had something I didn’t have before: a compass. A set of values. A commitment to living with integrity and joy.
And I’d learned this:
What you resist, persists.
Whatever you give energy to—grows.
What I Learned After Quitting Healthcare
In another post, I’ll talk more about a quote from my new hero, Anita Moorjani, who said:
“The problem is that we don’t have a healthcare system. We have a Healthscare system.”
But here’s what I’ll say for now:
The greatest lesson I’ve learned is this:
Any energy I devoted to the problem was energy I was robbing from the solution.
I’m finally beginning to trust that I don’t have to fix everything myself. Just like I don’t make my heart beat or my hair grow, I don’t have to single-handedly fix healthcare.
If I walk with integrity, stay clear in my intention, and take the next right step—without clinging to the outcome—life will unfold as it should.
Quitting Healthcare—For Real This Time
I’m done trying to save the healthcare system.
I’m done trying to rescue my colleagues from it.
Some systems aren’t fixable. Some buildings are in such disrepair, they can’t be remodeled.
They need to be condemned and demolished.
Quitting healthcare isn’t giving up.
It’s telling the truth.
And finally walking toward what’s real.
What’s next?
Meanwhile the system collapses, I’m withdrawing my energy from it. I won’t devote another second of my attention to a structure I no longer believe in. Instead, I’ll begin championing and supporting those who are creating something new. Something better.
So what’s changing?
If you visit my website today, you’ll notice some updates. The most visible one: I’ve removed the page that was once exclusively for physicians.
I won’t turn someone away just because they have an MD after their name—if we’re a good fit, we’ll work together.
PS: Does this resonate with you? Do you have an idea or project to create a new, alternative form of healthcare? (especially one that acknowledges the mind and the spirit?)
Let’s talk!
But being a doctor is no longer a ticket in.
I’m no longer trying to save people just because they remind me of who I used to be.
As I give myself permission to step into the unknown, I’m also opening to what’s already unfolding.
Stay tuned for more updates.
I’m still figuring it out, too.
With love,
Diely
And check the #1 Amazon Bestseller Bouncing Back: A How-to Manual for Joy with Minimal Energy expenditure
