2024 Year in Review – The Year I Quit Medicine7 min read

This year I made probably one of the biggest decisions of my life ever: I quit medicine.

I quit being an Internal Medicine Doctor in Boston, moved back to Pennsylvania, traveled a ton, made a bunch of new creator friends, hit (pretty much) half a million subs on YouTube, started Twittering (tweeting? Xing?), and for the first time ever have had no job/committment/school.

I wanted to reflect on what went well, what didn’t, and my goals for 2025.

The Wins

Leaving medicine has been the best thing for my health and happiness. I’ve been trying to figure out the balance of time off working hard on projects, but it’s been difficult. Here are some things that went well this year for me:

• I made about ~$100,000 from YouTube. This was mostly YouTube AdSense, sponsorships, and my courses. The most amazing part was that most of revenue came from scheduled posts. For the first half of the year I worked on YouTube maybe ~2 hours per week. I gained about 5 million views and 30,000 subscribers. 
• I wrote a book. I’m currently deciding on the cover and final formatting, but don’t worry, if you are on this email list I’ll tell you about soon! It details my YouTube and medical journey and how anyone can find financial freedom through a YouTube channel. I’ve always thought about it and then suddenly had the inspiration and wrote it in two months.
• I expanded my team. I now have 2 part-time video editors, an illustrator, a talent agent, and a writer. They make my life so much easier. I’m considering hiring a VA and another writer.
• I made lifelong friends as a doctor. Even though I quit, the personal connections I made throughout this journey will stick with me for life. Many of them are even reading this newsletter right now.
• I read 30 books (compared to my normal 3 a year). My personal favorites of the past year have been Meditations, Tuesdays with Morrie, Musashi, Unscripted, Dotcom Secrets, Red Rising Series, The 12 Week Year, The Comfort Crisis, The Will of the Many, How to Get Rich, and Slaughterhouse Five. 
• I put on about 10 lbs: I’ve always struggled to gain weight, but after finally getting a personal trainer (and taking creatine) I’ve seen some gains. I’m 5’10” and was 160 lbs at the beginning of the year and now weigh 170. I’ve began Rucking (wearing 60 lbs and hiking or walking), taking hot yoga, eating more, using hot and cold exposure, and sleeping consistently from 8pm – 4/5 am. 
• I secured an amazing job. I’ll discuss it soon, but I’ve accepted an offer for an amazing job in a new city where I will be moving sometime this summer. I was deciding between consulting, startups, medical education companies, and pursuing a personal project and have picked one of them.

Some tech “buys” I’ve loved (not sponsored):

• Eight Sleep – It tracks my heart rate, heart rate variability, stages of sleep and more. Also, it’s shown me how important it is for me have a freezing cold bed to sleep in for quality of sleep.
• GoRuck backpack – An amazing backpack that I sling ~60 lbs in once a day and go for a walk with.
• Leuchtturm1917 Softcover B5 and UIXJODO Pens – I journal every day in these, I prefer a bigger floppy notebook so I can sling it into any of my backpacks. These pens are pretty, grip well, and most importantly write great.
• Focus Timer 2 – a cute little Pomodor timer that I set on 50 minute increments.
• Airpod Max Headphones – The best plain headphones I’ve ever tried. They work well on planes too.
• A “Water Pik Flosser” and an amazing Electric Toothbrush – Recommended by my dentist and saves me so much time compared to flossing flossing. Does anyone really even floss?
• An Apple CarPlay screen – My car is 10+ years old so it doesn’t have a screen. Putting this on the dashboard has made my life so much smoother with Google Maps, Podcasts, or Music.
• Leica Q3 43 – I’ve pushed aside my passion for portrait/nature photography because I didn’t have the “right camera.” But I always told myself if Leica came out with a “Q” version closer to 50 mm I would buy it. I did.
• 3 Pairs of prescription glasses – I hated losing a pair of glasses and searching all over the house for them, so now I have one pair in my office, one pair by the TV, and one “travel” pair.

The Losses

Having no job or commitments has been great, but I’ve struggled to find purpose and my next steps. I thrive on planning and scheduling, and not having one has been messing with my head a little bit. Also:

• YouTube growth has slowed significantly: In the previous 3 years I’ve gained at least 100,000 subscribers a year and had >10M views a year. This year that was chopped in half. Now, I’ve published about half of the number of videos as usual, but my average video also get’s ~20k compared to previous ~50k views.
• My internet “niche” is unclear: I could post productivity content or more financial content, but it doesn’t feel as easy and clear as posting about trying to become a doctor and studying was. Maybe you could help me! If you could reply to this email and tell me what information has helped you out the most from me that would be amazing. Which content from me is your favorite? What would you like me to talk about more? (Physical health? Productivity? Life experiments? Making $?)
• I’ve gained my first “haters”: After publishing my quitting medicine video, I’ve had my first ever consistent naysayers. They email me, comment on my website, Twitter, and are all over my YouTube channel. Now, frankly, I really don’t care what they are saying, but it’s interesting to see the first ever consistent maligning of who I am on the internet. There was a brutal Reddit post about me. 
• I had surgery on my Retina: If you ever see floaters or flashes or changes in your ability to see please see a doctor! Turns out I had a detached retina and would have went blind in my right eye without surgery. You might be even able to tell on certain videos that my right eye looks more red. All is well now.

2025 Goals

Overall, I’ve taken a step away from true “goals” like “make $1M” and moved more towards systems/inputs, like “publish 50 videos.”

With that in mind, I developed my new year plan after going through 3 steps:

1. Reviewing my entire Journal and making a two column list: one column was “Lessons Learned” (like “Coding is fun”) and in the second column “New Commitments” (like “Code 30 minutes a day”). After every journal entry if something stood out to me, like “I love coding!!”, I would add it to the Lessons Learned Column and then create an action item for the new year.

2. The Year Compass Worksheet

3. Amanda Goetz 2025 Game Plan

After completing the above 3 I had a fairly good picture of where I want to be in 2026:

Business Goals:

1. Publish 2 new courses, 50 YT videos, 50 emails, 50 blog posts, and 400 Tweets

2. Create a paid website service

3. Sell 1 Physical product

4. Excel at new job

Personal Life Goals:

1. Hit 175 lbs at around ~11% body fat

2. Read 40 books

3. Put myself out there to meet new people, organize events

4. Stay close with family

The Bottom Line

Thank you all for joining and sticking with me in the past couple years on this crazy internet journey. I have to be honest, I don’t know where I am going next, but I do know it’s going to be fun and I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Wishing you an absolutely amazing and successful 2025 (I mean, being on this email list makes you an instant winner, anyway).