By Mardi O’Keefe
The medical workforce is neurodiverse. It includes doctors who are neurotypical and doctors who are neurodivergent, whether formally diagnosed or not.
Understanding how you function best can help you recognise your strengths and identify what support or strategies might make a positive difference. The goal is not to spend your entire career adapting to environments that don't suit you. It is to work towards a career pathway where your strengths can be recognised, valued and put to good use.
Understanding neurodiversity
Neurodiversity refers to the natural variation in how human brains function. Some commonly used terms include:
Neurotypical: People whose neurological functioning broadly aligns with what is considered typical in society.
Neurodivergent: People whose neurological functioning differs from these expectations. This can include people with autism, ADHD, dyslexia and other neurological differences.
Neurotype: An individual's neurological profile or way of functioning.
Neurodivergence presents differently from person to person. Two doctors with the same diagnosis may have very different strengths, challenges and experiences at work.
Navigating the early years of medicine
The early years of medicine involve considerable change and adaptation as you move between rotations, clinical teams and health services while developing your clinical capabilities and working towards a career pathway.
You are working within highly structured environments with established systems, hierarchies, processes and expectations about how work is done and how people interact. You often have limited control over your rotations, the teams you work with and how your working day is organised.
Every few months you may find yourself adjusting to different people, routines, expectations and ways of working. For many early career doctors, this is challenging. It can be particularly difficult for neurodivergent doctors, as navigating unfamiliar environments, unspoken social rules, sensory demands, competing tasks and changing expectations can require considerable additional effort.
It can involve substantial adaptation and sometimes masking, consciously or unconsciously concealing aspects of your neurodivergence to meet social or workplace expectations. Constantly monitoring how you communicate, managing your responses or suppressing natural behaviours can be exhausting, particularly when sustained over long periods.
While these early years provide important clinical experience, the environments you encounter are not necessarily representative of those in which you will spend the rest of your career. As you progress towards a specialty or career pathway, you will generally have greater opportunity to influence the type of work you undertake and the environments in which you work.
Your neurodivergence can be a strength
Neurodivergence is not simply something to manage or accommodate. It can also bring particular strengths to medical practice. Depending on the individual, these might include recognising patterns, thinking analytically, sustaining deep concentration, approaching problems differently, noticing details others miss or developing expertise in areas of particular interest.
Understanding how you work best can guide more informed career decisions. Which clinical roles and environments help you focus, perform and contribute at your best? Where can your strengths add the most value?
Navigating your early career
The challenge may be finding ways to navigate the structures and demands of early medical training while protecting your wellbeing, maintaining your confidence and continuing to develop your clinical capabilities.
Recognise your patterns. Identify the environments, tasks and situations where you function at your best and those that consistently drain your energy.
Develop practical strategies. Explore routines, organisational tools and approaches that can help you navigate more challenging rotations and training demands.
Explore workplace adjustments. Consider whether changes to communication, instructions, sensory environments or work organisation could help you perform your role effectively.
Manage your energy. Recognise when substantial adaptation or masking is taking a toll and consider how to protect your capacity.
Consider your career pathway. Think about how your strengths and preferred ways of working align with different specialties, roles and working environments.
Seek support early. You don't need to wait until difficulties affect your performance or wellbeing before exploring what might help.
Learn more
Explore the companion resource: Understanding how you work best
Need support?
Book a confidential Career Call to share your experiences or talk through workplace challenges, explore career options, develop practical strategies and gain perspective from an experienced careers professional.
Mardi O’Keefe is the Director of Engagement & Professional Growth at AMA Victoria.