Dr. Cho's Journey From Burnout to Travel Optometry

What happens when a seemingly successful career no longer feels fulfilling?

In this kickoff episode of 20 Happy Careers, Dr. Fred Cho opens up about his unexpected journey from burnout to rediscovering meaning and excitement through travel optometry. Joined by co-host Dr. Riyad Khamis, the two optometrists dive deep into the myths of career “success,” the warning signs of burnout, and how small, intentional steps can lead to a career that aligns with your passions and values.

Dr. Cho shares how a two-week locum transformed his outlook, what it really means to have career autonomy, and the surprising ways his blog and side projects opened doors he never anticipated. Whether you're in healthcare or not, this episode offers honest insights and practical tools to help you design a career that's uniquely yours.

Key Topics:

• Recognizing burnout (even when things look good on paper)
• What is a portfolio career and why it matters
• How to start a passion project without quitting your job
• Building autonomy no matter where you work
• Why your “Monday morning feeling” might be telling you something

If you're feeling stuck, restless, or just curious about alternative career paths, this is the episode for you.

Transcript

Dr. Riyad Khamis 0:00

Welcome to 20 Happy Careers with doctors, Riyad Chemist, and Dr. Fred Cho. Real conversations about the imperfect path to a happy career. So I'd just like to introduce myself. My name is Riyad Khamis. I am an optometrist and I practice here in London, Ontario. I. I'm really passionate about finding my passions. For me, it's really important to have a variety of different areas in my career from treating concussion patients, to working with athletes and and regular optometry as well. Finding that variety is really, really important to me.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 0:34

And my name is Dr. Fred Cho, and I'm a travel optometrist based in Ontario, but I'm licensed in three provinces right now and more to come. I like to speak and write about work happiness on my downtime, and I'm really excited to actually do this because Rita and I, like we've known each other from school. We went on mission trips together, so we've known each other for a long time, and it's just topic that we know we're both really interested in. Really excited to get this started. So Riyad, tell me kind of what, what is the podcast about?

Dr. Riyad Khamis 1:06

Yeah, so as we said, for us there's an optometry, there's a concept of 20 happy. Everyone's probably heard the had heard the term 2020, ideally 2020 is perfect vision or it's a definition of perfect vision. But as we know, everyone has a different definition of a different way of getting to perfect vision. It doesn't necessarily have to be 2020. Some people are happy with 2025 vision. Other people wanna be better than 2020. So really kind of the important thing is just finding someone who's 20 happy. So with this, that's what we're looking at. When we look at careers as well, we know there's no perfect path and no perfect endpoint to everyone's career in finding that happiness or perfect blueprint. So I'm really interested in diving in and finding the imperfect path and really finding. Different ways and different avenues to try to get to that 20 happy in whichever way it'll be as well. So that's where that name came from. Fred, what do you think the listeners will get outta this podcast?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 2:05

Well, we're hoping that we can have some honest conversations about burnout because it's so common among healthcare professionals, and oftentimes it's kind of swept under the rug. And so we want to have discussions with like-minded professionals. And to highlight the many different paths to a happy career. Of course, there's many more paths than just the traditional one that is prescribed for whatever your profession might be.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 2:32

Exactly. And hopefully that's kind of the thing. I'm thinking that we'll get outta this as well. But I'm gonna start with some hard hitting questions right off the bat for you, Fred. We're gonna go straight into it. Was there a point in your career where you didn't enjoy your work and what was the key to finding it?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 2:48

So that's a great question because for me, the burnout wasn't so obvious. I didn't even know that I was burning out. And I think it was just kind of the monotony of day in day out work. And it wasn't until a friend of mine, Dr. Zang, our classmate, uh, he called me about an opportunity in rural Manitoba. So I think the key to finding this travel optometry career that I now love and enjoy, I. It came from thinking about my career as a more of a creative building block problem and not just a linear, traditional box. So I'm sure we'll dive more right into that.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 3:28

Yeah. That's a really impor interesting concept as well, is we'll dive into a little bit about how I. You go about that and travel optometry is super interesting. I think that you've probably got to explore and see a lot of neat places, enjoy a lot of places. What, just real quick, what are their top three or top two places that you've gotten to see as a travel optometrist, would you say?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 3:50

So each place has something unique, right? Different culture and different people. But I've really enjoyed Newfoundland so far. I gotta say the coal signs are beautiful and. The culture is very vibrant too. Yes. And sometimes it almost doesn't seem like Canada actually, because the Newfoundland, it's the coastlines are very striking. Mm. And especially in summertime. It's gorgeous. I was just there a few weeks ago as well. Ah, nice. So favorite places? I would say Bonna Vista in Newfoundland. If you ever. Wanna just go away for a week or two and enjoy the piece. Like that's what I would recommend. Okay. Definitely my top place.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 4:27

Probably have to Google that, where that is on a map right now.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 4:30

It's home to like puffins. Ah. It's like these little penguins. They're very cute. Yeah. Ah,

Dr. Riyad Khamis 4:34

amazing. Yes. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure the culture there is really neat and interesting to learn about as well. So, but just jumping back into what you were saying about this career change and going that path, I'd love to kind of learn more about it.'cause a lot of times it's. Easier thought about than actually done. So I'd love to dive into that journey a little bit. So let's kind of dive into what prompted you. Is there any advice to people who are feeling stuck in whatever career they have? So this is not just meant for optometry, but all healthcare or whatever career, but people may get to a point where they're feeling stuck. So what would some advice be for them?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 5:10

Well, first of all, I was maybe nine years into my practice, right when I realized that I was kind of burning out. And honestly like I was at a great clinic with a great boss and on track for clinic ownership too, eventually. But as I often say, like I was successful on paper, but it just didn't make me feel happy inside. So I think it just ties back to our podcast title of like 20 happy, right? Like happiness and work. And in life it's, it's so subjective. And for me, kind of that traditional path for optometry wasn't really doing it for me. So I think if you're in your own profession there, I'm sure there's this prescribed traditional path in whatever field. And although it works for some people, I mean, you're a clinic owner and I know you love that. Yeah. It, it works for some people, but not, not for everyone certainly. So there are other ways to kind of find that work happiness. Um, and I think it's easy to get lulled into what I call, things are like good enough, right? So when you feel like, you know, it's, it's not, it's not bad, it's not great, it's just kind of good enough and that's the hardest part of getting out of that space.'cause I was also stuck in that for a long time. So, yeah, I think it doesn't have to take a quitting your job, right, uh, to kind of start this process. You can actually take smaller changes to kind of work towards your work happiness. So for example. I didn't, right away make this big shift. I actually, what I call prototyped. Mm-hmm. So I tried going to a two week locum office in Manitoba just to see if I would like the travel aspect logistically how to work. And that little experiment changed everything for me. And so I would say, yeah, it doesn't have to have a big step. You just have to start with a small, smaller one and take

Dr. Riyad Khamis 7:01

the baby steps. And I remember hearing something about how you feel about your work. Is illustrated sometimes on how you feel about Monday morning. And I know I sometimes watch Sunday night football and I'm tired, and Mondays are always, oh, I have to wake up to go to work. But that's more the tired aspect of it. But how you feel about actually going about your day and your job and whether you're at the point where you don't really wanna go to work on Monday sometimes can illustrate. Maybe that's that moment where maybe, maybe this isn't for me, is that, have you heard that before?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 7:32

Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, not every day has to be like fireworks, right? Yes. I think that's not really realistic, but you work should give you energy, right? It shouldn't be always taking away energy from you and you're always feeling drained. And that's certainly kind of how I felt.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 7:48

Yeah. That dread of, oh, I have to go back to work. We don't wanna have that as well. So let's say you are in that area, or let's say you felt burnout or you're thinking, okay, yeah, that makes sense, Fred, I'm, I'm kind of in that area. It's hard to go from there to the big step of making that change, especially from a salary standpoint, telling your significant other or your parents or telling someone else. What are some things that you would give advice on if people are on that path and say, okay, what are things they can incorporate a small things on a daily basis, maybe to start changing that career path or changing the way their career's going?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 8:24

Yeah, it's a great question and I think it's a very relevant one. Because a lot of people are in that boat like you just described. And I would say the key, at least from my experience, is to start a portfolio career. So portfolio career means that you have a combination of paid and unpaid roles rather than just one full-time job. So the key idea is that you don't just discard your main job and you just pursue a creative passion because there's now there's more risk, right? So keep the main job. Then seriously pursue another creative passion, whatever that might be. And this allows you to be creative without constraint for money or expectation. And so it can be something as easy as spending, you know, a few hours on the weekend on that passion project and focusing on how you can create value for others. Not necessarily focusing on how it can make money, because then now you're just looking for a second job, right? And yeah, we don't really need that, right? Like we we're looking for something that drives you, that makes you feel good. Just the act of pursuing that creative passion. To give an example for me, I, as I began this travel optometry, I got to start. Blog. I just started writing about ideas that I wanted to share. That's all. There was no other, really no other agenda. It has led me to places that I've never expected. So I got a few speaking engagements because of the writing. I mean, you don't know what you don't know, right? And I didn't know that I would love speaking as much as I did once I did it. So yeah, I would say one easy thing is to start a portfolio career. And kind of choose that creative passion to pursue seriously on the side.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 10:13

Yeah, I really like that. And I, and I think one example in my end too is, and, and this is sometimes goes for healthcare professionals or professionals in general, is sometimes we always value work as money. Like if we do this work, this is how much we should be worth or, or anything like that. Yeah. But you're right. Like I remember I was really interested in sports and. I wanted to get into the sports side of optometry and work with teams and things like that. But to the teams, I was just an eye doctor. Okay, well there's an optometrist. How is he gonna help us? So when I went in, I had all these expectations of people are gonna pay me this much money. This is how much I'm worth. And it didn't really work that way and, and I really had to first show. What I could do and, and I was really passionate about it, so I didn't mind doing it. Like for me, I never thought of it as work. I thought of it as you said, as like a passion or hobby or something I can do, and that really shone through and, and they realized the value and then it can turn into maybe a career or maybe a little bit of work, but sometimes checking that ego at the door and saying, you know what, I'm gonna just do this for fun and, and yeah, I may not be worth this much, but. I don't have to always get paid for something I'm passionate about. And that's how your passions can sometimes turn into your career as well, which is I think along the lines of what you were saying as well, which is great. And so on that part of it. So it's all well and good. It's sometimes I hear when people talk about career, podcasts, things like that is, okay, well I got here, it was this easy, this is how I did it. Follow these 10 steps and you'll get, get to being happy, lucky as well. But we all know that's not the case and there's always gonna be obstacles and what about, and, and I think we're all still chasing our 20 happy not, I don't think it's an end point. I think it's a, it's the journey of it. But what would you say are some obstacles now I can see you're on your journey, so what are some obstacles that you found challenging when chasing your 20 happy journey And, and maybe some things of how you overcame those obstacles as well.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 12:12

So the main obstacle that I found was that when I was pursuing this non-traditional path, people didn't really understand like why I was doing it, especially, uh, like family members. My parents, I remember they were so worried about why I am quitting my staple job, right? Because it's, it was a great clinic and great boss, and so like, why, why are you giving this up? And I think that's kind of the point of 20 happy, isn't it? Right. It doesn't always have to be this one particular box of what it could be. Yeah. For your work happiness. But that's been an unexpected challenge I didn't know I had to deal with. And at the end of the day, it's important that the work that you do and the career that you're building really aligns with you. Like there's this idea that work and life should be aligned. They shouldn't. Feel like completely separate thing. Like it shouldn't, if you're at work, it shouldn't feel like everything you wanna do in life is out there outside of these four walls. And I kind of know that feeling,'cause that that is how I honestly felt at the time. So I think it's, to your point earlier, riyad of aligning your passions with your sports and your knowledge of vision therapy. And combining that together. So now like the work doesn't feel like work per se, just the doing it itself is very rewarding.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 13:38

Right, right. Yeah, no, that's a really interesting point. I really like that analogy. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that when you're following your passenger, changing your careers, it doesn't mean you're not gonna work hard. Like you said, like you need to still work hard. It's not an aspect of, okay, I wanna take a break from work and. Maybe that's gonna mean not working or not working hard or not, because if you don't work hard, then sometimes where your goals are set, aren can always happen. And I think the other thing is, is when you were deciding on this maybe changing careers and you told people and maybe they didn't understand, you had a vision of what you felt like it was gonna be like. And I think that's important is when you are. Deciding on it. It's not a one day decision, right? It's not a, I'm gonna wake up today and my career's gonna change. It's something you thought about for a while and you experience and, and I think for, for me, a big thing is either writing things down or really going back to your self. So I did a presentation not too long ago to some optometry students and in, when you're a student in. Third, second, third year, you have this grand vision of what you wanna be, and you really are passionate about whatever your profession is. You've shadowed, you've seen people or leaders in the field, and you have this vision of where you could be. And sometimes we lose that as we graduate, we get into our first job and our day to day. So sometimes going back to that third year self or second year self. Or even just writing down right now, like when you have a quiet time, when you don't have distractions of where you see yourself and where you really want to go in that career path of 20 happy and writing it down. And then that way when obstacles come up, it's not a case of, oh, I'm gonna give up because this is hard, or this person doesn't really think it's gonna work. Or maybe even you have self-doubt, but if you write it down, you go back to that and say, okay, this is what I was thinking. And yeah, maybe things have come up. This is the end path that I wanna get to as well. So I think that that's a good way to, to really from my end on obstacles there as well.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 15:45

That's a great tip there, just to write it down.'cause there's something about writing it on a, like a tactile piece of a pen and paper. Yeah. And it's kind of reconnecting with your why, right? Right. Like why did you get into this profession in the first place? Exactly. And sometimes in the busyness of life, we forget that. And I think what you're also implying is that we need to pause and reflect on like yes, the life and works big questions. Yes. So I really love that point.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 16:13

Yeah. The quiet time's important, I think. Mm-hmm. In terms of creating autonomy, so I know I hear that term a lot is autonomy. It makes it easier or it helps with the career happiness. So what is career autonomy and what does it really mean to take control of your career?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 16:32

So autonomy is a fancy term. Yes. To say freedom over your work. Okay. Like freedom, right? And everyone wants to be self-directed. So in the context of work, it means a lot of different things potentially. It could be where you work, how you work, who you work with, and so. A simple example would be maybe it's getting off a bit early to pick up your kid from daycare, like that's mm-hmm. Or, you know, revising office policies on a task that you really care about. So it's, yeah, think of kind of being self-directed in, in how you do the work. And I think that is actually a key to lasting work happiness. And there's what I would call higher order needs for work satisfaction. So three of them I would mention is, well, autonomy is a big one. Yeah. And having a personal mission purpose to your work is important. And sense of growth. Like we all wanna be getting better at something. The, becoming an expert in something feels really good. But yeah, so autonomy is definitely a keystone, uh, uh, and autonomy for work happen.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 17:41

Sounds like it doesn't necessarily have to be, oh, okay, I'm my own boss, or I'm doing this, it, it can have autonomy as. If you're working as an associate or working in a practice or working wherever you are, is creating those things where you have that freedom of really kind of tailoring your career to where you want it to be.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 18:00

Definitely, definitely. And the thing is, everyone has different amounts of degree of autonomy that they want, right. To make them happy. Some people like me, I want to be completely free, right? That's why I chose travel optometry. I can go work with whoever, wherever I want. Not everyone I realized really wants that or needs that. Yes, yes. But everyone, they do need some sort of autonomy. And that is true whether you're an associate owner or whatever you do. And for me, what I like to tell people is you don't have to go in there and just making sweeping demands of what you want. Yeah. Um, think of it as like a win-win, right? Like if you are an associate and you want a little more autonomy built into your day. Then identify what would make the biggest difference and try to ask for it in a win-win kind of way. Like how can we both benefit from it? Make it easy for your employer to say, yeah, let's try that. Whether it means can we try for a month to see how that affects performance. Or highlighting mutual benefit. So it doesn't have to be big changes everywhere. Just think of small, small steps.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 19:10

Yeah. And I'll say as an owner and having employees just hearing them say, oh, I wanna do my own thing. Sometimes you have so much on your plate and it's not the sometimes not the most pleasant thing to hear, but as you framed it, there can be a win-win if someone comes and says, I want to start doing this in the practice because it's something I'm passionate about. And all of a sudden as an owner, you're like, oh yeah, that's something else we can add to our repertoire or our practice as well, and really make it so we can offer another service. And then all of a sudden you look to that person as someone who is a go-getter. And is is someone that you tend to value more in your practice as well because. They're bringing something additional to it also. So yeah, I really like the win-win part of it, like you mentioned there. And I think it creates that for both parties. It creates that sense of teamwork a little bit more as well on that part.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 20:05

And I will just add that if you have a more of a feeling of ownership over the work, and a great example of what you just brought up is if an employee suggests a different way of doing things, then that task becomes a little more under their ownership. And that has shown to increase productivity, drive innovation and work happiness ultimately for, for everyone. Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 20:29

No, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I like that as well. Alright, good. So some of the stuff we talked about work a lot and work happiness, and I think. Part of it. I really like the point of integrating work and life together, and I think as a travel optometrist, you've gotten to experience that a little bit more and seen a lot of the country and, and, and everything like that as well. But outside of work, let's say once those, once the clinic closes or you're done, what kind of stuff do you enjoy doing outside of work and could be traveling or, or kind of at home as well?

Dr. Fred H. Cho 21:00

Yeah. Well, I, I definitely love new experiences, whatever that is. So. For one moment I'll be into like whiskey or then I'll be into coffee or, yeah. I love like physical endurance challenges. Mm-hmm. Yes. So I, I've done a marathon before and I did a tough mother, I did a Spartan race not too long ago. That was four hours to complete, you know, going up and down ski hills four times carrying stones. And I wouldn't recommend it, to be honest. It was a bit, it was a bit intense, but it's. So fun because I was doing that with my friends at the same time, right? Yes. So we were pushing each other and kind of the comradery out of that, a new experience. So yeah, I mean, I just love mixing in new experiences with life and work, and I think that's why travel optometry fits my life so well. When I think back to my first nine years of career, I really was at the same office every day, just doing the same thing day in, day out, and. You know, I, I've actually gone back to that office just for little shift here and there. Right. And I found that I'm actually very happy there. Mm-hmm. So it wasn't even that, like I said, I was at a great clinic with a great boss. It just, it didn't align with my personal values. So yes.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 22:16

Yeah, the days probably start to blend together when you're, and, and now all of a sudden you have all these, as you said, experiences and memories and everything like that as well. And yeah, you get to see all these new places and, and I think there's a lot of, just touching on the travel part of it, there's a lot of underserved communities. Sometimes if we're in a city, we're still busy. But when you go out to these small towns, you realize, oh, like I'm really valued here because there's not a lot of people with my knowledge or expertise here as well. And that must feel great as well.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 22:48

Yeah, yeah. And it's part of how I got to reconnect with why I got into optometry in the first place. So yeah, like I said, Riyad like if, if you ever want to go work out and you plan together, there are clinics with multiple lanes. But

Dr. Riyad Khamis 23:01

remember we did a mission trip together in Am I gonna. Probably butcher the name, but it was Chias Mexico Chappa de Corzo, right? Yeah. And I remember like 40 degree weather seeing hundreds there maybe thousands of people just lined up and it just constant and, and we loved it. Like we didn't get paid for it. We paid to be there. Yeah. But we got so many, we got, we got to help so many people. And I think, as you said, experience wise. Probably a memory we'll both remember and, and how, and kinda love to do again at some point as well.

Dr. Fred H. Cho 23:36

Yeah. If you remember the whole town lined up,

Dr. Riyad Khamis 23:37

right? Yes. They, they had an advertisement

Dr. Fred H. Cho 23:39

for the whole town. The mayor came out to thank the whole team and Yes. So the whole. Yeah, for sure. Interesting experience. Yeah, no, we definitely gotta do that again.

Dr. Riyad Khamis 23:48

Yeah, one day. So that was great. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and we'll definitely dive in to more in future episodes as well as we get out to learning more about yourself, but also other people too. We'll reach out, we'll have other guests on the show. And really, as you said, we'll learn that path or everyone's path and different obstacles that they, they went through to try to reach their career happiness. So I think it was really valuable to learn your journey there as well. So I would love to dive in more in future episodes as well. So thanks for listening to 20 Happy Careers. If you found this helpful, we'd love for you to subscribe, share, leave a comment. We're really gonna continue to dive into trying to rethink success and what it really means to love your work. And as you continue, just keep plugging away and hopefully you found some valuable tips, tips along the way as well. So until next time, keep plugging along, but keep finding your journey to happiness and, and keep working away at it. And we're excited to, to be with you on this journey as well.