The Day I Got Fired

Exactly twenty years ago, on a Friday afternoon toward the end of June, I drove into the city on a trek that would change my life.

I had been summoned to the office of the Chairman of my group—a mid-tier pathology group at a teaching hospital with aspirations but little prestige, in a city full of giants like Northwestern and the University of Chicago. The nature of the summons was to “discuss my future role with the group.” This was reasonable and welcomed, as the sleepy suburban hospital where I had been stationed for more than 20 years was undergoing a metamorphosis and no longer required an onsite pathologist.

My expectations, as I became ensnared in traffic on that very hot afternoon, were that my new role would involve working with some clinicians who were recruiting me and our group to establish an in-office laboratory, while also teaching pathology residents and covering the pathology service at the university hospital. It would be a change for me, but with the support of my pathology colleagues, I was confident the new venture would be successful. I was also looking forward to the challenge of teaching.

Going into the meeting, I was aware that not all members of our group were my allies. I had become a partner when my suburban hospital affiliated with the larger institution about 10 years earlier and was still seen by some as a less competent outsider. But what I expected to be a conversation about the future quickly turned into something else entirely.

“Your role with our group is no role. You are out.”

I refused the chairman’s proffered handshake and walked out of his office.

I returned home in the heat and the traffic to tell Barb that, for the first time in my life, I had been fired.

In the next few weeks of negotiations, I received permission to pursue the clinician group’s in-office laboratory. That group agreed to contract for my services, resulting in a 17-year, satisfying relationship that ended only with my retirement.

Today is another hot Friday at the end of June. The travels I am planning are to a round of golf and a poker game. Nothing as life-changing as that voyage 20 years ago—but looking back, I see that the drive that seemed like an ending was only a beginning. It was my metamorphosis, and it was my liberation.