Category Archives: personal growth

Gratitude Again

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Office view 11-20-17

NaBloPoMo 2017: Field Notes from a Life in Medicine

I generally dislike cold, damp, cloudy weather.  I have survived this in Chicago the past 26 years, somehow, by grace.  Usually the second half of fall just feels dreary, wet, and lame to me.  And yet this season, on this drab day, I feel warm and happy inside more than last year.

Can’t say why, really.  Another year older and wiser, perhaps?  Maybe because the kids seem to have crossed some magical threshold on this side of which they seem suddenly much more mature and self-sufficient?  I’m entering my fourth year in my current practice, which is the magic number for really settling in, it seems.  With the patients I only see once a year, the third and fourth times bring a familiarity and rapport that can only come with time.  It’s like catching up with old friends.  I’m grateful for another year of watching my family grow and flourish.  I’m grateful for my work, and the immense personal and professional fulfillment it affords me.

Two years ago for my first NaBloPoMo, I wrote November Gratitude Shorts.  It was a spinoff from a Facebook trend in which my friends and I posted gratitude for something every day.  Writing a couple sentences a day was fun and easy; converting those ideas to full-fledged blog posts proved more daunting than I had anticipated.  It felt like a slog much of the time, though I did write some pieces that I’m still proud of.  Last year I felt more relaxed, less pressured to write profound things.  This year I’m actually having fun, though I can still only rarely make myself sit down to write before 10pm.  That will be the challenge next year.  I am grateful for the chance to practice my writing and share with a community of readers, writers, and friends.

I feel the holidays coming on, a little more acutely this year than last…  It’s been a tumultuous year, no doubt, in so many realms.  And yet we are all still here, relationships intact for the most part.  And many of us, happily or begrudgingly, have learned a little more about our biases, our emotional triggers, our friends’ and families’ hidden beliefs, and similarities and differences we did not know we had before.  The conversations continue, then maybe stop for a while.  Emotions heat up, cool down, heat up again—and hopefully the connections remain or even grow stronger.  I have hope that we can continue to do better, and I’m grateful that the trials of the past year have shown me what courage and resilience we have.  I am grateful for the holiday season every year, and the chance to reflect and advance.

A friend told me recently about marriage advice he received when he was young.  We get beyond infatuation and on to real love, he was told, through commitment.  This past year I have seen myriad examples of people making meaningful commitments—to their families, to their core values, to their ideals, their aspirations, their fellow humans.  The examples are everywhere, if we are open to seeing them.  I am grateful for the persistence of humanity, and for our innate drive to connect.

The holiday season is upon us, and truly, I wish us all peace, love, and joy.  I’m grateful to have so much to celebrate, so many to celebrate with, and so much to look forward to.  May you feel and be moved by all that holds you up, this season and for all seasons to come.

Because This Is Who We Are

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Followers of this blog may know of my interest in and passion for physician health and well-being.  I was immersed in this world the last couple of months, with two amazing conferences and multiple conversations with fellow physicians at work.  As often happens, I was moved to articulate a vision/mission statement of sorts, mostly to solidify my own intentions and also to share with like-minded colleagues.

I love that I enter this arena from the world of executive health.  Corporate leaders, physician leaders, and physicians on the ground share so many attributes that everything I learn from patients translates seamlessly to my own professional development.  This is exactly the right space for me to inhabit today, and I am forever grateful for the integrative experience.  Physicians are care team leaders by default, and we miss opportunities to improve all of medicine when we forget or ignore this fact.  I’m interested to know your response to the words below—the more visceral the better (but please, if possible, refrain from spitting, vomiting, or defecating your own words here):

Why do we advocate for physician health and well-being? 

Because we believe we can only lead well when we are well ourselves.

Because leading can be lonely and leaders need support.

Because leaders need metrics of our own performance, both related to and independent of the performance of those whom we lead.

Because health and leadership intersect inevitably and who we are is how we lead; the more awareness and active, intentional self-management we practice, the more effective leaders we will be.

Because people follow our example, like it or not, so we owe it to ourselves and those we lead to model Whole Physician Health.

What Is Whole Physician Health?

Whole Physician Health is an approach to health and well-being which defines physician as both clinician and leader, both healer and vulnerable.  This approach focuses on the 5 Realms of Health: Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, Stress, and Relationships.  We explore how these realms intersect and overlap, affecting the individual physician, those whom the physician cares for and leads, and the entire medical profession.  We apply principles from health and sports psychology, communication, leadership, mind-body medicine, and myriad other disciplines.  We value openness, curiosity, critical analysis, and collaboration.  Our mission is to create a resilient medical culture in which all members—physicians, patients, all caregivers and support personnel—thrive and flourish.

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The Whole Physician Health Advocate:

*Values self-awareness and self-exploration.

*Understands and accepts his/her position as role model and culture setter for the team.

*Wishes to broaden the skillset in cultivating positive relationships

  • With self
  • Between self and immediate colleagues
  • Between colleagues themselves
  • Between physicians and staff
  • Between teachers and learners
  • With extended family of colleagues and institutional entities
  • Between institution and the patients it serves

*Sees the physician health and well-being movement as an opportunity to learn, see from a different point of view, connect to fellow physicians, and form new tribal bonds that will hold us all up.

*Wants to contribute to the creation of a global professional vision and mission of the 4 WINS:

WIN 1–You

WIN 2–Those you lead

WIN 3–Your whole organization

WIN 4–All those whom your organization touches

Of note, one need not be a physician to advocate for Whole Physician Health.

Stability is Strength

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The holidays are coming.  People will be bustling up and down Michigan Avenue with large shopping bags and puffy coats, fuzzy hats and determined gait.  If someone knocked into you on the sidewalk, would you be stable enough to hold your space and not get pushed over?

I asked this to a friend today, a woman about my height and twenty pounds lighter, ‘bird-boned’ by her own description.  I swear, she looks like a feather to me.  We were talking about our habits, what seems to be changing as we approach menopause, and how we envision our best selves in old age.  I thought about the elder women in my family, who are all healthy in general, but not necessarily fit.  What if someone knocked into them this holiday season, would I be dealing with a hip fracture over Christmas?  The mortality rate for people over 65 in the year after a hip fracture is somewhere on the order of 25%.  My friend and I definitely do not envision this for ourselves.

So what needs to happen in order for me to stand my ground in the face of some external force?  I need a stable foundation, my feet in firm contact with the ground.  I need a low, massive center of gravity.  I need fast reflexes to contract and relax opposing muscles groups to bear the sudden and unexpected load.  I cannot be rigid and brittle; rather I must exert flexibility, to absorb enough force to move with it and away from it on my own terms.  I need to stand tall and face the force head on, with openness and grace, firmness and self-assurance, ready to assess instantly whether it was inadvertent or intentional, benign or malicious.  And then I need clear-minded judgment to determine how to respond to either condition.

This may come naturally and easily in our 20s.  Today, bum knee notwithstanding, I feel confident that I could meet such a force with appropriate strength and stability.  My friend and I agreed today on a shared vision: STRONG OLD LADIES.  We understand that this will not just happen because we will it; we need to fuel and train, rest and recover, and cultivate our mind-body connections, as well as our connections with others.  Small habits, sustained over time, positive or negative, will yield predictable results.  So the time is now to pay attention and establish some excellent patterns.

It occurs to me that this idea of stability and strength relates our physical to our mental and emotional well-being.  While Amy Cuddy’s research has recently been called into question, I still adhere to the idea that power posing and physical posture can enhance or diminish confidence and self-efficacy. Wide stance, low center of gravity, elongated spine, and open arms:  Stand strong, feel strong, think strong, speak and act strong.  I have practiced power posing before presentations since 2015 and I believe I am better for it.  And if it’s a placebo, I’ll take it—the benefits so far have outweighed the risks and costs.

Lastly, I think we can also apply this stability and strength awareness to our inner lives.  Here I refer to our integrity.  Our world changes ever faster, technology offering capabilities we had not dreamed even a decade ago.  It seems every interaction these days is shorter, more ‘efficient,’ less personal.  That is the default goal—low cost, high speed above all else.  Change is often good.  But we must also exercise judgment, and practice taking the long view, casting light from our core values onto a cautiously optimistic future, attending to and addressing the shadows.  We should gut-check, with ourselves and one another.  What are we really getting here?  How will we use it mindfully? How can it serve us, rather than us serving it?  When we are stable and strong in our shared humanity and collective goodwill, we arrive at the best answers to these questions.  Then we can all be stable and flexible, and stronger as we age together.