This week, we are focusing on a spin-off issue around navigating the demands on your time, energy, and attention. Four common issues arise that side-track us. 1. People-Pleasing. 2. Reputation Management. 3. Self-Judgment 4. The Procrastination Habit. Let’s start with the first two.

People-pleasing for physicians sounds so nice, doesn’t it? What could possibly be wrong with it? I think the answer lies within the definition. If you love to serve and make others’ lives...

Week 4 Navigating Demands.

We each have people or tasks that demand our time, energy, and attention – usually many more than one human can tackle.  This week we will discuss how we can optimally manage the requests. Hopefully, you crafted your own purpose-in-career statement from last week’s exercise.  You will use that and your core values as part of the process. If you haven’t done it yet, take the time to work through it, as it will be valuable for...

We are continuing our Purpose-in-Career Series. This week I offer you a working blog. Go ahead and get out something to write with and on (or, if you prefer, something to type into). I combined a few methods I’ve experienced and added my own takes. (I don’t have the original attributions as they were either not given to me, or I don’t recall.)  You get to design your own purpose as it plays out in the professional realm. You don’t have to wait for an epiphany.

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We started our Purpose-in-Career series last week by addressing an emerging theme among some early-career physicians - “I’m not wanting professional fulfillment.” Hopefully, I created enough wiggle room to consider the middle ground for those individuals. This week we will review the benefits of revisiting or redefining your “why” behind your career choice.

Crafting and reflecting on your motivation for being a physician is quite empowering. As usual, I...

Getting back in touch with your previous reasons for choosing medicine and/or discovering new motivations can be a powerful tool to improve your professional fulfillment. Before I unpack all the amazingness that can come from crafting an individual purpose statement for your career, I want to take this week to relay a side-note observation.

I’ve noticed an emerging trend involving a small percentage of early-career physicians having an adverse reaction to phrases such as...

This week, we conclude our series of the three foundational ingredients that support physicians’ psychological health. We camped out on Autonomy for five weeks, then covered Relatedness last week. This week we focus on Competence.

(I hope no one is disappointed that I will NOT be taking on the demonstration of competencies to specialty boards, governmental stakeholders, hospital organizations, patients, and other external entities. That controversial topic is beyond the...

This week, we are finally moving on in our series to the second key component for physicians' psychological health. Relatedness - a sense of belonging and connection - is critical, not only in team relations but in your personal mental fitness. Brené Brown has described belonging as the feeling of security and support when there is a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity. It is connected to positive, lasting, and significant interpersonal relationships.

Relatedness...

We are finally in the last chapter of autonomy as one of three key underpinnings of psychological fitness for physicians – autonomy, relatedness, and competence. This week, I will attempt to tackle – imperfectly so – the unique situation of autonomy for residents and fellows. After all, trainees are not different in what supports their psychological health than attendings.

Autonomy of task/technique (i.e., supervision): Most discussions about autonomy for trainees...

Continuing our series on psychological foundations for physician mental fitness (autonomy, connectedness, and competence), we are rounding out the final domain of physician autonomy this week – Team. Interestingly, over the past two weeks, many of my examples demonstrated ideas for autonomy of time, task, and technique involving team. Teamwork is interwoven into medicine, so it makes sense that it would impact the other three arenas.

There are top-down organizations that...

We continue to explore the foundational needs for psychological fitness – autonomy, connectedness, and competence. Autonomy has four important domains: time, tasks, techniques, and team. We covered time last week. This week, we will reflect on the tasks and techniques.

Tasks/Techniques. Depending on the setting practiced in (academic, hospital, rural full-spectrum, community outpatient, etc.), there are numerous tasks we each perform. I'm sure there are places where the...