Career planning - why is it so important

By the time some people reach out to Medical Forum they can be quite sceptical about career planning - such is their disillusionment with where they are right now.

If there is a dissonance between where you are and where you expected to be - there is bound to be some dissatisfaction. However it can be even worse if you never had clear expectations and clear career goals in the first place. If the latter is the case - how on earth can one think one could end up somewhere that meets  needs and matches what one wanst when one never defined these? It sounds such an obvious thing to say yet it seems many people step onto what they think is a training conveyor belt and hope that will take them to where they want to go.

You can take 100 trainees in the same specialty and not all of them will end up with the same careers. Far from it. The difficulty lies with lack of time being put to career planning, lack of training, lack of culture that s

"but I am planning to take my MRCP - that's planning"
Well yes and no
MRCP is a hurdle
A stage along the pathway
But it is not strictly career planning -  it is about 5% of a career plan.

Doctors need far more help in steering through the career maze , defining their own particular blend of talents and how best to use these. 

When I set up Medical Forum 27 years ago - everyone said "but doctors do not need career guidance".

The current burgeoning of career coaching and career conferences I think finally has proven me right.
But we were the first - by some margin!! (sorry but I think a wee trumpet blow is called for there).