Member-only story

Who am I without my white coat?

Career transition, identity loss, and reconstruction

Mark Shrime, MD, PhD
9 min readFeb 3, 2025

I heard the pop. The minute it happened, I knew I’d torn basically every ligament in my knee.

I knew this would be a career-ending injury.

Let’s back up.

The knee broke in January 2021, at the height of the pandemic. Three years before that, I’d been ranked the best ninja warrior athlete in my age range—in the entire nation.

Ninja warrior was my identity. Yes, I was a doctor and an academic. But where I really came alive was on the ninja course. Heck, I’d even changed my instagram handle to ninjasurgeon.

But then a pandemic, a dissolving marriage, and toxic job deteriorated my ninja skills. As 2020 flipped over to 2021, my new year’s resolution was to get those skills back.

The problem was: I was nearing the end of my forties. Which meant that, although my deconditioned muscles remembered what to do, they were too weak to do it.

Also my ligaments had become porcelain.

Objectively, the fall that destroyed my knee wasn’t that bad. I fell less than three feet, from an obstacle I’d done hundreds of times before—an obstacle I was confident in; an obstacle that didn’t scare me (like most of them did).

But that evening, my body went one direction, my leg went the other

Create an account to read the full story.

The author made this story available to Medium members only.
If you’re new to Medium, create a new account to read this story on us.

Or, continue in mobile web

Already have an account? Sign in

Mark Shrime, MD, PhD
Mark Shrime, MD, PhD

Written by Mark Shrime, MD, PhD

Author, SOLVING FOR WHY | Global surgeon | Decision analyst | Climber | 3x American Ninja Warrior Competitor

Responses (24)

Write a response

Not to be cold but this made me laugh. I mean, what % of the population can say this beyond a 10 year old in a turtle costume on Halloween.

Be thankful for the privileges and successes you’ve had and move on. Life rewards action so do it. Much…

Such an important topic. I went through this after I left my executive role, and it took me a long time to get it back together. I didn't know who I was without my achievements. I never thought to ask.

Technical question: let me begin with a quote from a NY Times article regarding world-famous 40-year-old skier Lindsey Vonn. It says, "Almost a year ago, in April 2024, Vonn had surgery on her right knee, in layman’s terms a partial knee…