From the
PRESIDENT
JOHN L. ROBERTS, MD
GLMS President | [email protected]
MY COLLEAGUES WILL BE MY
BROTHERS (AND SISTERS)
T
he call came on Monday night, a
medical school classmate calling to
ask for information and a referral.
His daughter was about to deliver a premature baby in a city far away. I am sure you
have all been in a similar situation – the
opportunity to fulfill an oath you took when
you graduated from medical school, for me
40 years ago, “My colleagues will be my
brothers.” Fortunately, his daughter was in
a city where one of my former neonatology
fellows now practices. Connections were
made, the baby was born and is doing well,
and my classmate is a new grandfather. But
the next few months will be stressful for
him. His daughter and new grandbaby are
far away; but he is tied to his work here in
town.
Where now lies the fulcrum of his worklife balance? At what point will an imbalance lead to burnout, frustration, anger or
bitterness? If that time comes, how will it
affect the care he gives his patients? What
will be his resiliency? Will he cope and
will it be in a healthy way? Will he have the
self-awareness to recognize if he’s tilting
towards dysfunction?
Much has been written recently about
physician burnout and about achieving a
"work-life balance." But I have trouble with
this term. Isn’t work part of life, not something entirely outside of it? Besides, for me
plenty of good stuff happens at work – it’s
not like work is all bad. And, if we do accept
the term “work-life balance,” is it an equal-
arm balance? With time as the beam, do our
days teeter-totter back and forth unsteadily,
"work" on one side and “life” on the other,
see-sawing to find that balance? Are the
arms hopelessly one-sided?
Perhaps a better model is that of an unequal-arm balance, much like the one Larry
Martin, MD, my primary care physician,
uses in his office to weigh me. Today my life
in all its complexity, and alas all 200 pounds
of me, is equal to the weights adjusted along
the graduated scales of the front and rear
beams. I can largely choose the weight and
composition of my life, given luck, much as
I have some control of my body’s weight and
composition. This takes self-awareness, attentiveness, resources, commitment and, at
times, the support of friends and colleagues.
But I must admit I am not an expert in
this. And, as I will have to explain to Dr.
Martin why I weigh more this year than
last, I had to explain to my lovable daughter
why I was working on this article, two weeks
past the deadline, while sitting on the porch
of our lake house on my weekend off. But
I did not find myself unhappy in doing so.
When all is said and done, perhaps we
all need to accept that our lives are complex and always a little out of balance. And
that life can, as it did to my medical school
classmate, hand us some weighty issues that
tax our coping skills. Perhaps in the end,
the most important things for a happy and
healthy life are:
•
We have time to reflect on our lives
and recognize what makes us happy
and what stresses us out,
•
We know the resources available to us
to get our lives back into balance,
•
We have a commitment to keep working on it, and
•
We have supportive friends and colleagues who are watching out for us
and willing to fulfill the oath we all took
when we became physicians, “My colleagues will be my brothers” and sisters.
So I encourage you all to take time to
reflect on your lives and careers. You are in
the best profession ever! And, you are doing
important and meaningful work. But it can
be stressful. Become aware of the signs of
stress and burnout in your daily life. Know
that the most important resources you have
are the people around you: your family certainly, but keep close those physicians and
colleagues who can and should support you,
in the doctors’ lounges, in our offices, in
conversations and gatherings, in our own
medical society. Do not hesitate to call on
each other. We all took the oath.
Dr. Roberts is a neonatologist with the University of Louisville Physicians and the Vice
Dean for Graduate Medical Education and
Continuing Medical Education at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.
OCTOBER 2016
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