 To the outside world, when you become a doctor, it may seem like you've made it. A good job, a great salary, and most important, good job security. Well, I thought the same until I got an email from my boss saying, I need to chat with each of you individually. Yikes. Who would have thought that we need to talk line would show up in this situation? And to make matters worse, at this time, I was all across the other side of the world in India with my family on what was supposed to be a great two-week vacation. Now, all I could think about after getting that email is, am I going to lose my job? That was doubly concerning. One, because that was the easiest to let go. And two, is for a little surprise, I'm going to hold on for the very end of the video that really mattered in this scenario. But here's why I was the easiest to let go. Now currently, I work as an internal medicine hospice. This is the first job I took after finishing medical school and my three years of internal medicine residency. Now, the job itself was awesome. Great salary and the schedule was the best part. Seven days of work followed by an entire week completely off. But in late 2022, I made the decision to apply to fellowship, which is essentially additional training after all the training I've already done. In particular, I applied for a cardiology fellowship, which would mean three years of additional training and then a future as a cardiologist. And in late November, I found out I got in. Now, at this point, I tell my employers, hey guys, I'm going to be leaving for fellowship in July of 2023. I'm going to be sticking around until then. Hopefully that gives you a few months to go ahead and fill my position when it's time for me to go. But then in January of 2023, I get that darn email, we need to talk. And my mind was spinning and I found myself thinking, Laksh, you'd be the easiest to let go. You're already leaving. And I started asking questions such as what's going to happen to my family, my salary, our insurance. Who in the world was going to hire me knowing that I would be leaving for fellowship in just a few months anyways? So I frantically responded to that email trying to act calm, while secretly panicking, telling my boss, quote, hey, I'm on the other side of the country, by the way, mind telling me what's going on. And I hit send knowing that everyone was sleeping on the other side of the world and all I could do was just patiently wait. But this was not a situation where I could be patient. So I began frantically texting colleagues who may know what was going on, asking questions such as, hey, are they letting people go? Like, what is happening? And finally, a few hours later, I got a reply from one of the other docs, saying, hey, yeah, the hospital is losing money and they're having to let people go. My heart dropped. And then he added, they've already laid off all the PAs and NPs today, all of them. My next obvious question was, well, what about the doctors? To which he responded, one from each week. Now remember as a hospitalist we work one week on, one week off. That means there's essentially two teams of doctors and one for each week. And that means based off that text, one doctor from each week was going to get let go, which for me was an even worse scenario because from my group, I was the easiest to let go. Not because of performance, but because they knew I was already leaving anyways. So now I became a waiting game for my boss to get back to me. And eventually my phone paint. Here's what he said, quote, hey, yeah, sorry, I forgot you're out of the country. Sorry for any unnecessary stress. The hospital is unfortunately cutting staffing. That means all of our APPs were let go and two docs for now are being evaluated for each week. Reading this, I was already waiting for the bad news until he said this. We've decided that since you're leaving for fellowship, we will effectively close your position after you leave instead of letting anyone else go from your week. Wow. Now it took me a while to process that message. My position was essentially being used to avoid laying off another doc. That was the best case scenario. Not only was I going to keep my job, but so was one of my colleagues. Which for me was a best case scenario. I kept my job, but so did one of my colleagues. And now it's much easier to breathe because I knew my job was safe. But here's a surprise that I promised earlier in the episode. Most importantly, we were going to keep our insurance for my wife and our first little one on the way. That's right guys. I'm going to be a dad to a little baby girl. While we're super excited to meet this little one, this entire ordeal is very stressful because of the concerns of am I going to be able to provide both the income and the health care that my family needs. So knowing that my job is safe is a sigh of relief for me and for her. But things surprisingly got even better. Now when I transitioned to fellowship, I'll be taking a big pay cut since I'm going back to training. And by big, I mean 75% pay cut. Ouch. So for the next three years, fellowship would mean we'd have to be very mindful of our spending. And with a little one on the way, that wouldn't be as easy. And I knew I wanted to take as many extra shifts between now and starting fellowship to add to that buffer and income. But as a hospitalist, the last thing you want after working seven days in a row is to take an extra shift. You're so burned out and extra money usually doesn't motivate you to take that shift. Now remember, they were going to let two docs go, one from each week. Because they were keeping my position until I was leaving, the other team effectively had one less physician and thus more patients per doctor. And so essentially they were looking for somebody from my week who'll work both weeks instead of the typical seven days on, seven days off. And I managed to hear this conversation out of pure luck. And when I did, I jumped in and said, I'd be interested in that. And after some discussion with upper management, here's what happened. My schedule is no longer the typical hospital is seven days on, seven days off. Instead, I work every single week between three to four days, Tuesday to Thursday or Tuesday to Friday. Now this comes with tons of benefits. One, I get all my weekends off again. Two, I'm not as tired from my long stretch of seven days. Three to four days in a row are much easier to handle. And three, it's much easier to take an extra shift without sacrificing on my burnout or wellness. In my employer's perspective, they have an extra doc on their busiest days of the week being me. So definitely a win-win scenario. So ultimately what came as a scary message ended up being a blessing in disguise for myself, my wife, and a little one on the way. But this experience taught me that reality, no one's job is safe. Unless you're the boss, even in a field like medicine, there's really no such thing as guaranteed job security. But sometimes you do have to find the silver lining in things, be a little creative, be a little flexible, and thankfully it worked out for me. Now if you enjoyed this episode, you'll probably enjoy following me around for an entire day as a full-time hospitalist, as well as this episode right here on why I ultimately made a decision of transitioning into cardiology. Go ahead and check those out, my friends, and as always, thank you so much for being a part of my journey. Hopefully, I was a little helped to you guys on yours, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.