we continue to see the same number of patients both in the office and the hospital. You have to have your surgery by December 31st? Sure, I’ ll add you to the list of other surgical patients that have been demanding surgery before the end of the year. Jovial laughing and a lot of“ I know, right!” could be heard in the hallway while we walked.
We then agreed that come January, it all changes. People go back to their usual routine behaviors, and we get back to baseline. I got the feeling during this conversation that this provider was surprised that the end of the year is so different than the rest and they weren’ t sure why or if it was just their experience. I shared with them my Scrooge moniker. I reassured them that I named myself over 15 years ago and it seems to fit each year. In other words, this is not a new problem, nor a problem solely happening to them. The relief on their face was evident. Our conversation turned to,“ It was good catching up with you and have a good night.”
You could describe that as commiserating. But I think you could also describe that as mentoring. I have seen the ghosts of interactions past, present and I daresay future. The experiences of the past help to make us the providers we are today, but I feel there is a responsibility for the old guard to help the younger whippersnappers. This includes the old guard telling the new guard that their feelings are valid and not unique. I clearly don’ t have a way to make those around me different in the fourth quarter of the year( stupid autonomy), but now they know it isn’ t enough to make me leave this part of my life’ s story either. It was a way to let them know that our job demands are different than most. We have different expectations for us and of us. We talked about techniques each of our practices do to help reduce stress and workload( i. e., lighter schedules for those that do the actual holiday, OB and urgent office visits only during the last two weeks of December, etc.) but that hasn’ t seemed to be enough. The young peer walked away knowing that many of us feel the same. This was my ghost of interactions present. as an acknowledgement of what his strengths and weaknesses were when it came to the business of health care. He learned he wanted to not have to worry about business. He ultimately became a hospitalist.
My ghost of interactions future honestly haunts me a little. Many of us who have put a couple of decades into this job have lived through many changes in both medicine and the people who practice medicine. Shortfalls in manpower, resources and provider trust are wreaking havoc with our drive to just be good doctors. I know that this means our younger peers may need even more support and mentoring as their day-to-day life may be very different than what they thought it would be. The fear is that not only is it not what they thought it would be, but that it is something they no longer want to do. Ultimately, mentoring may be needed now more than ever.
So how do we become good mentors to our younger peers? My opinion is that it is different for each peer. Some peers may need emotional support with conversations, structured time away to vent or help figuring out what fills their emotional bucket, so they know what to do when they need it refilled. Some peers may need efficiency support that could boil down to helping understand the EMR better, templates and smart phrases, or just finding a better rhythm to their daily grind. Some may only need,“ Whom do I go to’ s?” or“ How do I orders?” on the practice of medicine side. Others in the same area may need skill support which can be achieved by operating together, teaming up together or just reviewing cases together on a routine basis. The Venn diagram for being a great physician has as many circles as Scrooge has wrinkles. Figuring out which of those circles is in need is the first part of being a good mentor. Observe, talk with( not just to) and really listen to what your younger peer is presenting to you. They will show you what they need if you are looking for it. The last thing health care needs is to have our younger workforce hobbling in on crutches. The Cratchits and the Scrooges of this industry have the ability to help the Tiny Tims lose those crutches. I encourage you to give it a try.
Dr. Barnsfather is an OB-GYN with Norton Women’ s Health.
My ghost of interactions past is the day I sat down my new employee partner while I was a solo practitioner. I had opened my own practice and after one year, I was ready to bring on a partner. I didn’ t have a corporate income guarantee to help with the salary. As a result, I offered him a low baseline with productivity after that. It also came with the promise that I would sit down with him monthly to go over what his productivity was in collections and what the costs were of doing business so he could understand how his work was uniquely tied to the cost which was ultimately tied to what he took home. By the third month of this, his eyes glossed over within a minute of the numbers talk. He clearly was not a numbers guy. This was not a good use of his time. This mentoring attempt may seem like a fail, but I viewed it more
March 2026 13