Have you ever felt disappointed with how the healthcare system works? You went into medicine to help people, but it doesn’t feel like you are making the difference you wanted to.
Our guest today, Dr. Katie Deming, knows exactly what that feels like. She worked for 16 years as a radiation oncologist and in healthcare leadership. From the outside, it looked like she had it all - money, respect, and love from patients and other doctors.
But inside, she had this feeling that she was meant for something more. In this episode you’ll learn:
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Have you ever felt disappointed with how the healthcare system works? You went into medicine to help people, but it doesn’t feel like you are making the difference you wanted to.
Our guest today, Dr. Katie Deming, knows exactly what that feels like. She worked for 16 years as a radiation oncologist and in healthcare leadership. From the outside, it looked like she had it all - money, respect, and love from patients and other doctors.
But inside, she had this feeling that she was meant for something more. In this episode you’ll learn:
Book your FREE Career Clarity Call:
Ready to create a life of freedom and fulfillment? Let's connect to see how I can help you!
Click here to book your FREE 30 min Career Clarity Call.
Life After Medicine FB Group
Connect with a community of like-minded healthcare professionals seeking career change support
https://www.facebook.com/groups/leavemedicine/members
Have you been feeling disappointed AF with the healthcare system? Like, you initially got into medicine to help people, but you don't feel like you're making the difference that you want to be making. Maybe you've even tried to change the system from the inside. I remember in residency, I signed up to be on the wellness committee and I was trying to bring some of the ideas I was learning in my personal growth books into the world of medical training. But there was so much resistance and it felt like this uphill battle. So how do you know when it's time to leave the system entirely? How do you know when you can help people and make more of a difference from leaving the system than from staying? This is exactly the question that our guest this week, Dr. Katie Deming, was facing. She had been working as a radiation oncologist for 16 years and also working very high up in leadership roles, helping to organize delivery of cancer care for large amounts of patients. But even though on the outside, she literally had everything you could have asked for. She had the money, the respect, the admiration of her patients and colleagues. Something felt off. She had this feeling that she wasn't making the difference that she wanted to make, that she wasn't supposed to be practicing radiation oncology. How do you make a huge life decision? on something as intangible as a feeling? And what if leaving your career, stepping outside of the system, following that feeling, also means losing other pieces of your life that are important to you? Katie's answer, and her story, involves A borderline supernatural experience, the Chinese symbol for crisis, and a 47, 000 watch. So if you've been having doubts about the current healthcare system, you're going to really resonate with Katie's story and her insights around how she made this huge decision and what her life has been like in the aftermath. If you want a chance to connect with Dr. Katie Deming and ask her some of your burning questions at the end of this episode, I will let you know what to do next, but first, let's get to the show. You're listening to Life After Medicine, the podcast for health professionals who want to make a difference, make a living, and still have the freedom to enjoy their life. My name is Chelsea Turgeon, and my mission is to help you, the lost health professional, find your authentic path to helping others and generating stable income without having to sacrifice your own health and happiness in the process.
Chelsea:Hello, my loves. Welcome back to another episode of Life After Medicine. Thank you, as always, for pressing play. So today I'm here with Dr. Katie Deming, the conscious oncologist, TEDx speaker, and host of Born to Heal podcast. And we're going to explore leaving traditional Western medicine and to create your own holistic healing practice. to begin with Katie, you worked in radiation oncology for a long time what were some of the key moments where you started to become disillusioned with the healthcare system?
Katie:Well, I remember hearing a parable in, it must've been like 2017 that really caught me and made me start thinking about this. There was a village along a river, and one day the villagers noticed a body. drowning in the river. And so they sent someone out to rescue this person who was drowning in the river. And then the next day there were two people drowning in the river. And so then they sent two people out to rescue these people who were drowning and got them to dry land. And then the next day, four and eight and 16, it was just doubling day after day. And the village got very organized and they coordinated themselves and Developed this elaborate rescue system. They had rescue boats and all of these things that were high tech ways of getting people off of the river and the village elders were praising the villagers for what an amazing job they were doing. And I turned around and I looked at my friend and I said, this is Western oncology. What the heck is happening up river like why the hell is everyone landing in this river and drowning and we're just glorified Rescue workers on this river pulling them out not knowing what's happening upstream And then also if we don't know what's happening upstream, how do when we get them on to dry land? Tell them how to stay safe so they don't fall back in the river. And so that started in 2017. In addition to practicing radiation oncology for 20 years, I also was a healthcare leader at a very high level. I designed, led and ran all of cancer care for, a large. healthcare organization in the northwest of the U. S. And then actually right before I left, I had been nominated to become the national medical director for all of cancer care for this organization, which would have put me in charge of, um, cancer prevention, screening treatment, diagnosis, the whole spectrum to end of life or survivorship for 12 million Americans. So very deep in The not only the delivery of radiation oncology, which was my specialty, but the delivery of cancer care along the entire continuum. And so I had been frustrated because as a leader. I had wanted to do these things and they were actually simple and easy and would save the organization money, but they required an investment upfront. but you could not get buy in because they were like, no, cancer is just expensive. And that was so frustrating because I'm like the doctors, the nurses, the people who are delivering this care, the boots on the ground want to make it better. And yet. The people at the top just want to hang on to the money. And so I was starting to get disillusioned probably like 2016 2017 it started, but it really didn't. And so when that first came up for me as a question until 2019 I started saying to my husband, I feel like I'm not supposed to be practicing radiation oncology. I know that sounds so weird, but I have this sense that what I'm doing is not what I meant to be doing. And he said, Well, you know what? There must be something wrong with you because you have everything Somebody else would want you make half a million dollars a year and you work four days a week your colleagues love you. Your patients love you. You have a boat. You live on a lake. You have couple million dollar house. Like if you are not happy, which is what you're saying to me by saying you think you shouldn't be doing radiation oncology, maybe there's something wrong with you. Maybe you're not going to be happy. Like maybe this is something that is wrong with you that you're never going to be happy. And we're divorced now for obvious reasons, I internalized that for a little while. and I thought there was something wrong with me for a long time.
Chelsea:I call it like gratitude gaslighting. You look around at your life and it looks great on paper, looks great on the outside, but there's something about it that doesn't feel good on the inside. But we disregard that and we tell ourselves, like, I should just be grateful and then other people tell us that too. Other people tell us that we should just be grateful. And it's so hard to reconcile with. What did that, Present to you did you have ideas of like other things you wanted to be doing? Or were you just at work and like had a sense of restlessness or like what did it actually feel like on sort of a day to day basis that you had this sense that you were not supposed
Katie:to be doing that anymore? I felt like I wasn't making the difference that I wanted to make like every day I would go to work. And this is an example of I was in clinic. This is probably 2019 and I saw a breast cancer patient back after her radiation. She came back for like a 2 month follow up or something. And at this point I had started talking to my patients about changing the way that they're living their life because emotional stress is contributes to illness and I, I didn't know I hadn't dove into all the literature yet, but I was starting to sense that my patients needed to change. In order to not get sick again, and so during radiation, it's a beautiful specialty in that you get to see your patients every week. So I'd really get to know my patients. And so this particular patient during her radiation, we had spent a lot of time just talking about her life and how she could change things, how she could shift, from this experience of having cancer and take better care of herself. She was always caring for her children and her husband. she was doing great when she was in treatment and seeing me every week, like the accountability thing, but then she came back for her two month follow up. And when I asked her what she was doing and how it was going with the changes she had made, she was like, Oh, Dr. Deming, like everyone stepped in and helped me while I was going through the cancer treatment. And now that it's done, it's like, I have to step back in there and do everything because they've been doing it for so long. And frankly, she was doing now more than she had before the diagnosis because she felt guilty. And I was just like, Oh, here we go. she's going to be back in the river, I wanted to do something different. Like I wanted to be able to truly help her. Like, how could I help her? But then I also realized she didn't sign up for that. She didn't sign up for me to change her life. She signed up for me to give her radiation, which is what she got. And now she's going on with her life, which is exactly what the system is set up to do. And so I realized that I can't really make the change that I want within the confines of the system because the system works exactly the way it was designed to, and the system is designed to sell. Pharmaceuticals, or in my case, radiation or chemotherapy or procedures. I didn't understand that that's what the system was about right and actually it isn't till now that I've left the system I think actually leaving completely was the best thing that I could have done because the way that I describe it is like when you're inside a bottle, you can't read the label on the outside of the bottle. It wasn't until I actually left and got out that I could see. Oh, okay. I see what this bottle is all about. This bottle is all about selling pharmaceuticals to patients, and it's a very, elegant system, and it's designed beautifully, and they've done a wonderful job of taking the smartest, brightest, and structuring us into selling this system, but this is what it's about, and that's not what healing is about. It was like in my interactions with my patients. It was in the interactions as a leader that I just realized I couldn't make the impact that I wanted to. I couldn't change it because the system was doing what it was designed to do.
Chelsea:Yeah. it's so hard because the problem
Katie:it feels like so
Chelsea:intangible to describe what you're experiencing. And it feels like it doesn't make any logical sense. Cause you're like, well, I am making a difference technically. But it just doesn't feel like I'm making the difference. I was meant to make or doing the things I was meant to do so then I think a lot of us, we can ignore it for a long time. What was the moment where you're like,
Katie:I need to leave. so that happened in 2020, and it was right after I had finished I don't know, four months of interviews for this national position, and I came down to me and another woman, she ended up getting the position and I knew when that happened that that happened for a reason, I just trust that things are always working out. And then immediately after that, I had this experience that is described as a shared death experience. And most people have heard of a near death experience, but not many people have heard of a shared death experience. But a shared death experience is something that often happens to healthcare professionals. What happens is that one of those people is not dying, you know, is caring for the person who's dying, experiences On a spiritual or metaphysical level, what the soul experiences when they cross over best way I can describe it is like having a near death experience without dying, you know, having seeing the love and the light and feeling that beauty without having to flatline You know, have your heart stop. So I had that experience, in the fall of 2020. And that experience changed me much like people who've had near death experiences describe that that changes them. It changed me. And what changed really was just that little niggling uncertainty, that intangible feeling that you're describing all of a sudden became very clear to me. Like, this is not the way that we heal. And you know what? I knew, and this was not from this particular experience, the shared death experience, but it was from being around death so much in my career, taking care of over 5, 000 people with cancer in my career, and about 40 percent of my practice was palliative, meaning that we were helping with pain or whatever, so I was, you know, around a lot of death. And I knew from the patients that I had been with who were close to death, they would all say similar things. Like, I wish I had listened to myself. I wish I had done what I wanted to do I felt insecure, but now I know that it all doesn't matter and that I should have just been who I was and I wish I had been true to myself. So I had heard that over and over again. So after this event in 2020, the shared death experience, I had all this other knowledge from being around death for so. if I knew this was not right, I knew I had to leave. And if I didn't, I was going to regret it at the end of my life. And I'd been with too many people at the end of their lives when they had regretted not living their truth, that I was going to do it. And it was scary because I knew my husband wasn't going to support it. And the big thing for him was he's like, well, if I knew you were going to just take another job and make money, it's fine, but I was telling him, I said, I need time off, I need to leave. And I don't know what I need to do, but I need a little bit of space because me just jumping into like another fellowship or into like a leadership position or going to pharmaceuticals is not honoring. This feeling inside, like I need to explore this feeling inside, which means I need space. And so that's what he was not on board with. so I knew that there was going to be these massive consequences to this choice, but I had just this conviction from the experience. And then also my experience of being around death that let me know I really had no choice. I didn't really have a choice. Like I knew I needed to do this. I needed to leave and I needed to take time off.
Chelsea:Yeah. And it's so hard to articulate it because it doesn't make logical sense to people. Like if you like run this plan by somebody and you like give them a pro con list, none of it makes sense.
Katie:Your intuition is often not going to make sense because what makes sense in our society and within Western medicine is totally nonsensical. if what we're doing in society is really good for our health, do you think that we would have epidemics of diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, obesity? Cancer like one in three people in their lifetime gets cancer now, and that's changed just in the time that I've been practicing. we have a society that has everything completely backwards, including medicine. When you have these feelings, I would say, if it doesn't make sense, you're probably onto something that's correct, if it makes sense, you're just basically feeding into a system that is designed to make money for whatever it is, the systems are not designed to help us get well and we are the people who have the knowledge and have the expertise expertise To change what's happening in society. I'm not one of those people that tell people to leave, but I'm telling you the system is broken. The system is not designed to do what we all thought it was when we went in. it's like this idea of it not making sense. Of course, it's not going to make sense. Because what makes sense is actually making us all sick. I love
Chelsea:the way you've changed the entire frame of reference of that because it's almost like make sense according to who are like according to what exactly. So often we're looking at it to make sense in our brain from the things that we've been told I don't know if you follow Martha Beck. she talks about. Consensus is like the culture, but then we have to come back to our senses, which is like how we feel and like what our body is telling us. And that's the thing that we can use to make sense of and it's the cultural consensus that maybe doesn't, it doesn't make sense according to that, but it can make sense according to our body and our inner knowing and our intuition.
Katie:Absolutely. And if you look at this story that has been sold to us. That, okay, you get an education, we're very highly educated, you do all the right things, and then you, build a practice or join a hospital, whatever, and then you get married, and everything's perfect. Was the story that was sold to you, how's that turning out for you? So I just think there's so many things that are backwards in there that if you don't understand that context or you haven't really seen it that way, you feel like you're the crazy one. But when you start to realize like, Oh no, maybe I just live in a crazy construct. And your body is telling you our body is always communicating with us. And when things are off, you know it. And sometimes just knowing what's not right is enough. And, but it's very scary in this space when you've committed your whole career and you've paid for tons of education and you've really. Invested in a system to realize it's not right for you, but for me, that was the one thing. The only thing that I knew I didn't know what was right for me yet. I just knew what wasn't right. Yeah. And so you,
Chelsea:you have this knowing that like, this is not right. there's something more that I need to be doing. I need to take some time off. I need to just, I need some space to figure it out. How did you allow yourself to almost like jump into a
Katie:void of unknown? The reason why I decided to go to medical school is the path is laid out. And when you step off the path, that is the scariest part. Like the unknown. And I took that as an opportunity. So, you know, the one thing that I tell my patients all the time is cancer is a crisis. And crisis in Chinese is symbolized by two symbols. The first symbol is danger, which makes sense. But the second symbol is opportunity. And I always encourage them to look at their crisis as an opportunity. And so I had been saying this for so long that I was like, okay, well, here you go, Katie, here's your chance to like walk the talk. So I got really uncomfortable and you have to think about this. So I made the decision in December of 2021 and that decision. Basically was the start of the end of my marriage. We decided we were getting a divorce. We were having to sell our house. Like I was going to have to figure out how I was going to support myself. And, I just put my seatbelt on. And was like, okay, Katie, this is not going to be like smooth sailing. Like you wanted growth. You wanted to learn your lessons in this life. here's your chance. here is your opportunity to put your money where your mouth is. And so I ended up taking a lot longer off than I thought I would. I thought I would only take like three months off and then start dabbling in something like do a fellowship or whatever. But the more time I took off, the more I realized, like, I'm like, Oh, I need to just be for a little bit like I've been too busy doing that. my body doesn't even know what Is what right now, I really need to take some time and heal myself, just like all the things that grieve the loss of my marriage, grieve the loss of my career. My mom also died during that year. So there's just like so many losses that I needed to just grieve and move through all of that. but yeah, it was really uncomfortable and huge growth opportunity.
Chelsea:Wow. And that's so much, it's like so many things in your life. Changed all at once. I feel like it's during that time that people can start to panic. And be like, this was all a mistake. This is too hard. I messed up. I need to go back to safe ground. Did you have moments like that? And like, how did you remind yourself that like this was the right path
Katie:for you? So I had my Board certification for radiation oncology, and I kept that for, a certain period of time because I was like, you know what, this is great. I'm in a great position because if I decide that I want to do locums or whatever I can, so I kept that as an option. But the weird thing was, is that every time I went to go look at it, because I'd start to get scared, the money is going down in my accounts. And I'm like, I still don't know what I'm doing. I'm like, I don't know how this is all going to come together and then I would go look up locums or something and it would just never work out. It would just, and also it felt so heavy. Like I just had like this sinking feeling even when it was like a great, you know, they're going to pay me 3, 000 a day to go to New Mexico for like two weeks or whatever. That sounds amazing. But I was like, I don't want to do it. So I did keep my certification so that I could have that. But eventually. It was like probably nine months after I left, I realized I'm like, I'm not going to do low comes like I'm not going to use this safety net that I have because it's not what I'm supposed to be doing. That's why I left. and that started to strengthen my idea that I was doing the right thing, even though I still didn't know what I was going to do with it. I definitely had those moments. And then what I would say in terms of what I did to self soothe and kind of get myself through that is that I actually kind of went into isolation. I stopped connecting with my old friends who were in the clinic, in the hospital, because it was, It was hard to explain. It was actually almost like I had shame around it at the time, like it felt like shame. Like, cause I would think about, they would invite me to things and then I would just be like, Oh my god, I don't want to go. Like, I don't want to go. And then if I would go, it would make me feel like, I didn't make it like somehow I was a failure for dropping out, so I, separated myself from that, which I think was healthy and good. Now I'm back in connection with them because now I'm more grounded and I'm in a better place to do that. I also did not share. I'm quite public actually in sharing my story now on my podcast and on social media. But. When I was in that vulnerable place, it wasn't the time for me to share my story because I needed to get clear with myself first. And I've done coaching for a long time. So I've had coaches. I don't know, for probably 15 years or something long before coaching was popular. But what's interesting is during this time, I didn't have a coach, but if I hadn't had a coach at that time, I would definitely hire a coach for a transition like this. But I had been coached for so long on so many different levels that I actually. Intentionally pulled myself in and I wanted to listen to myself. Like I was intentionally making decisions to start to tune into what was inside me.
Chelsea:I love that. Everything you described is so relatable when did you start to maybe turn the corner or kind of get to the other side and when did you start to take steps towards your
Katie:next thing? I left in July of 2022. And then it wasn't until the summer of 2023 that I was like, okay, I'm ready. and I knew that I wanted to do a more holistic approach. And I knew that I wanted to be around people with cancer because that has just been my, Passion. And so I decided that I was going to do an integrative practice, but actually I intentionally did not do a fellowship. So I looked at enrolling in an integrative fellowship, but It reminded me of more of the same, of what I had been trained, and it was like you could do integrative messaging, but the training was like very superficial, like you would just learn like, you know, a little bit about acupuncture, a little about herbalism, just enough that you could refer someone to someone else for that, but I was like, I don't want to do that. I want to learn these things. So I just decided to create my own curriculum and started studying what makes the body well, because I knew so well what made the body sick. Like that's what we're taught in medical school. It's all about the pathophysiology or the things that go wrong in the body. And so I started studying what makes us well. And I learned, you know, so many things about the impact of emotions on cancer and other illness and how it's tied. There's a correlation between, trauma in childhood and illness. Like the ACE study is a great example of that. And then also there's, evidence or, data around people doing emotional work who cure their illness without conventional treatment. And as I was just diving into all of these things, I realized that any holistic healing requires physical practices, which makes sense, like diet supplementation, that kind of thing, but also requires. An emotional component, a mental component, and also a spiritual component, helping people get aligned with who they are as an individual and in living a life that's authentic to them. Cause I see actually people get sick. So people get cancer from a living a life that is not aligned with who they are. And this was kind of why I had to do this. I was like, I, I could get sick too, for living the life. That's not mine. And so. I decided to just go for it. And I was like, it's not going to be big. And this was hard. this is something I want to say that's hard. It's hard to go from being respected. And for me, I was in leadership positions. I was recognized like regionally and nationally to all of a sudden being like put up a baby website and be like, Hey, I'm seeing clients like what? That is embarrassing. That's something that people need to understand that that's a hard step because you feel like, Oh my God, like what I've just definitely stepped down like five notches here. And so it was humbling, but I knew that I just needed to get started to know how this was going to look. And likely what I started with was not what it was going to Look like in the end and again this ties back to your thing about this is not the path is all laid out for you You're just gonna have to get started which is super uncomfortable And then you're gonna have to learn and probably what you start with is not where you're gonna land But the good news is that if you can walk this path what I love about what you do is teaching people how to do this. Like, how do you walk through this, desert on your own. And it's like if you were able to walk through these steps, then it does start to come together. And then you start to see, Oh, and now I have a practice. It's still, I'm not going to lie that like I'm making tons of money. I'm still investing in my practice, but I'm investing in what I believe is right for my clients and for myself. And that has a totally different feeling and alignment with who I am. And so now when I help people, it's like, I'm really serving them. I'm really helping them get better. And so for me, it's been really rewarding, but I'm not going to lie. It's been really challenging. Yeah.
Chelsea:I remember that like I had one week where I'm in the hospital, wearing scrubs working as an OB doing like surgeries and you know being like a big shot the next week I'm literally teaching. English to third graders, and
Katie:I was like,
Chelsea:what? What have I done? What is this thing? And I'm putting up Instagram stories that are like,
Katie:hey guys, I can life
Chelsea:coach you. And it does feel so weird to do that
Katie:it feels very uncomfortable and very much like you are lost. But you are on your way to being unlost. I feel like we're lost in the system. We lose ourselves in the system. We're taught to abandon ourselves. So this is you coming home to yourself, but you're gonna feel a little lost along the way. And just knowing that that's normal, and that is part of the path back to yourself. Do you still feel lost sometimes? Oh, yeah. I'm having my first, workshop next week and then I'm launching a 12 week program on healing for people. And I was like, I don't know what I'm doing we have a, an amazing advisor who works with us, but she's done this a few times and she's like, All this stuff needs to happen. And my assistant is relatively new and I've never done a launch before. And I'm like, I don't know. And so she called me and she was like, I just feel like I, maybe I'm not doing a good job. I just want to make sure I'm okay with you. And I was like, yeah, no, you're fine with me. I'm like this morning, I was like having a meltdown. Cause I was like, I don't think I know what I'm doing. you know, but it's a different place. We've been taught to think we know. You know, everything and get comfortable in the knowledge that we had. And so when you're in new spaces and you're doing new things, of course, it's gonna be uncomfortable. I'm doing things every day that are totally new for me. You know, I, I've never done interviews on podcasts before. Now I'm interviewing like world's experts on water and healing. And I'm like, How do I do that? So I'm nervous. And so it makes sense that you're going to feel nervous. You're also going to be tired because it requires much more attention when you're doing new things all day. And you just have to understand it's not going to feel like this forever. Eventually you're going to get comfortable with this too, and you can do it in your sleep. But when you first start, it doesn't feel that way. And there's a lot of uncertainty. Yeah,
Chelsea:and for you, what is, making it worth it to kind of go through the newness again and do it again, because I think that's something a lot of people I talk to are worried about. They're like, oh, I don't want to start all over. But for you, why has it been worth it to start all
Katie:over? Well, it's funny because like what's coming to my mind is like feels like it's unrelated, but I think it's an example of how something better has come into my life than what I had when I released. What wasn't working. So anyway, when I got a divorce, I was like, shoot, I don't want to date. I don't want to do online dating. Cause I'd seen just nightmares from friends. I said, I was never going to do that. I'd been alone for like a year and a half and. My mentor had said something to me, totally unrelated. He was talking about my career and what was possible for me. And he had set this like big vision. I was like, wow, like that's possible. And I had heard on a podcast, the story of Robert Grant, how when he was doing this big launch of a, Company that he was super uncertain about things and they were burning like 5 million a day. He bought a watch to anchor himself to the billion dollar IPO. Like when he was burning 5 million a day, he would look at this watch. the watch would anger him to this future state of what he wanted. And so my, mentor had said, you know, one day. You could have a private jet. And I was like, wow, I love that idea. and then when I heard this podcast, I'm like, I'm going to get a fancy watch to like anchor myself to that future idea. And then I looked up like watches. I have a friend who's a watch collector and he's like, this is the one you should get as a Rolex Daytona. It was beautiful. And I was like, oh, that's a beautiful watch. I definitely want that watch, but it was 47, 000 or something crazy. And I was like, well, obviously I'm not buying a 47, 000 watch when I have no job and like, no, whatever. I'm like, even if it's going to anchor me to this private jet. So anyway, Last year, May 12th, midnight, I get this, sense that I'm supposed to go on Bumble. And I can tell you that my TED talk came from a vision like this, where I just saw the TED symbol in someone's face. I didn't even really know the woman was involved with TED. I reached out to her because I was like, I don't know why I'm getting this message. She's like, you're crazy because I'm on the TEDx team. Selection committee for Reno and our application deadline seven days. So apply. And that's how I got in. So when these messages come through, I kind of pay attention. And since my sheer death experience, I have more of these kind of visions. So anyway, I get this message to go on Bumble. I go on Bumble at midnight, create a profile. It takes me two hours to like figure things out. and all of a sudden I'm in this sea of men that are horrible. And I was like, Oh my God, what am I doing here? And I just see one guy. Okay. So one guy, his photos are in color and everyone else is in black and white. I like him and I go to sleep. Next morning, I wake up. I'm like, what are you doing? You said you were never going on Bumble or any other online dating. Anyway, I didn't meet anyone else. Went out with this guy. Second date, he said, I know this is going to sound really weird. I'm a watch collector. And I have a watch that I, I just want you to wear it. for whatever reason, since I met you, I feel like you're supposed to wear this watch. And I was just like, Oh, I'm like, tell me, please tell me what this watch is. And you can see I'm wearing it right now. It's a Rolex Daytona and it's much, Nicer than the version that I had picked out with my friend. It's like a vintage one. That's a panda That's like super rare. And so anyway, so then my second date I'm wearing, you know this 40, 000 watch that a stranger just gave me and he is the most amazing man I've ever met in my life and that is just an example of what happens when you let go of what's not working and you create space for what's possible. I don't have the answers about my career yet. I think that story is to be told. It's, in progress, but I think that that's just a beautiful example of how things can work out better than you can imagine when you let go
Chelsea:It is so scary to let go of the known and let go of like what you already have, but when you're able to take that leap of faith and just trust and let go of what's not working for you anymore. It does make space for incredible things to open up. So I love that. And I feel like we could continue to talk all day because there's just so much we could go into. But for people listening who are in that space where they're like, it's not this, this is not right for me, but I don't know what is right. What is like one piece of
Katie:advice you would give? Listen to that voice. Because I've seen too many people at the end of their life regret not listening. And even though it's hard, it's like, not discounting your voice by what other people says. Start looking at why they're saying the things that they're saying. Why are they invested in you staying where you are? And you don't have to know what you're gonna do next. You don't have to be able to see the whole path. If you know that something is not right, That alone is enough and listen to it.
Chelsea:Thank you so much for sharing that. I do think a lot of the people. listening to this are gonna be interested in paving a path similar to what you have done. So I just want to like, thank you for going first and for sharing about what you're doing.
Katie:Yeah, absolutely. And that is what my podcast is about I share my story of leaving Western medicine. And then I invite guests on to share the things that I wish I had taught in been taught in medical school about true healing. So if people want to learn about another path for healing, For sure. My podcast can give you kind of thoughts and ideas around what are other ways that you can serve and care for people and help people get well without being within the traditional system.
So, how do you know? How do you know when it's time to leave the system? How do you know when you can make more of a difference outside of the system? Like Katie shared in this episode, it all comes down to trusting your gut, trusting your intuition, that little voice inside of you that says, not this. And yeah, obviously it's so scary to trust that voice and to start walking into the unknown, but really that's the price of admission for following your purpose. It's like this quote from the author Brianna West, your new life is going to cost you your old one. It's going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense of direction. It's going to cost you relationships and friends. It's going to cost you being liked and understood. It doesn't matter. The people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side. You're going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward. And instead of being liked, you're going to be loved. Instead of being understood, you're going to be seen. All you're going to lose is what was built for a person. you no longer are. So I know it can be so scary, but just knowing that you're in good company sometimes is one of the first steps. So if you listen to this episode and want to know so much more, if you want a chance to ask Dr. Katie Deming all of your burning questions. Come join us in the Life After Medicine Facebook group for a Q& A. We will be collecting and answering your questions on the Q& A thread pinned to the top with Katie's name on it. So click the link in the show notes to join the group and we cannot wait to have an even deeper discussion with you