I don't reckon there's ever a right time to leave your clinical career behind.
I say that as someone who spent years with a gnawing feeling each time I clocked on that work was kind of same same and when I compared myself to my colleagues I often felt different or like I didn't actually belong there.
Like anything, when you look back - there were signs the whole way through my career but it's hard to pin down one that put its hand up and announced itself as the moment. The closest I came to a clear signal was during covid, when I'd started my dream role of permanent full time ED physio and I was putting on all the PPE I needed to walk out onto the floor, and I clearly remember thinking this is not what I signed up for.
So when you message to tell me you're not ready yet, I believe you and I get it. I just don't think you're going to wake up one day ready.
A savings buffer helps especially if you wanna flip the switch cleanly, one job straight into the next, that's a real way to do it.
But waiting and doing nothing are two different things. While you're still in your clinical job, and still getting paid (which is rather the point), you can be:
- meeting people and broadening your network (cos as much as it can suck who you know helps)
- building one skill that isn't clinical - this could be taking on a local small biz social media account, joining toast masters, become treasurer of your football club
- finding an early stage startup and offering to help with a part of their business they are struggling with
- taking a volunteer role at a charity or social enterprise, and using it to stretch your clinical skillset into something wider
None of that needs a resignation letter. It just puts you in front of a different set of people, and helps show how your transferable skills transfer.
This first went out to Post-MDT subscribers on 2 August 2026. You can read the original edition in the archive, or get the next one in your inbox.