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As a rheumatologist, you’re used to having goals. After all, you set your sights on becoming a physician, achieved the necessary educational degrees and passed required exams. After meeting your educational goals, you landed a job at an academic medical center or an established rheumatology practice, or you may have started your own practice.
So what now? Should you put yourself on cruise control and coast until retirement?
Hardly, says Stephen A. Paget, MD, FACP, FACR, MACR, physician-in-chief and chair of the Division of Rheumatology at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York. “Without specific goals, you will flail about aimlessly at every phase of your career, waste time and money, and never attain the end that you desire. It would be like taking a long trip without a map,” says Dr. Paget. “You need to have a starting point, a goal for the future and then develop a map to achieve that goal.”